


The Child of Earth and Sea

by WhisperingWolf



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale, Inuyasha - Purity Universe
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M, Fluff, Psychological, Romance, Some military
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-03-15 19:35:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 94,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13620267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhisperingWolf/pseuds/WhisperingWolf
Summary: Summary: What happens when a myth that was never supposed to be real turns out to be the one you love the most? What wouldn’t you give or do, to protect the ones dearest to your heart?





	1. Prologue - "Satoshi"

**Author's Note:**

> AN: The Child of Earth and Sea is part of the Purity series, and braided into the timeline of Charity and Ben’s story. Rumiko Takahashi owns Inuyasha and all recognizable characters from the anime, all characters from the Purity universe belong to Sueric, I have simply been granted the honor of taking them out to play for a little while. This series tells the story of Nessa Beaumonte, from the one-shot Heart of a Warrior, and has been written with the approval of, and in collaboration with the original author of the Purity Universe, Sueric.

**The Child of Earth and Sea**

_A Purity Collaboration_

_By_ _WhisperingWolf_

 

Prologue

 

 

_Darkness surrounded her, soothing her with the familiar weightlessness she had once known so well. She wasn’t breathing, her lungs weren’t moving, but she wasn’t frightened by it, didn’t suffer for it. Opening her eyes, she studied the world around her, the fragments of shadows and light thrilling her as she waited, holding still despite the rioting storm of anticipation inside her. She could feel the vibrations in the soft sands beneath her, the ocean bottom cushioning her, as the water slipped past her, around her, gliding over her like so many silk ribbons. The familiar youki – vibrating with excitement – was there, coming up behind her ever faster, the water trembling against her thick skin, as she felt the ashika drawing closer, racing toward her, only to shoot past her as he spiraled ever higher. There was a burst of excitement, her muscles tightening and releasing as a restless energy surged through her that was too much to hold back, and with one great beat of her flukes she lifted from the sands below._

_The water parted, her flippers and dorsal fin slicing through the sea as bubbles formed around the seam of her mouth. Her muscles contracted as she beat her flukes harder against the sea that held her, chasing behind her friend as they raced through the water, spiraling higher and higher, the darkness of the ocean depths growing lighter until she could see the sparkling array of sunlight glinting off the surface of the water above. The cry she released was full of excitement and joy as she broke through the surface, air exploding from her blowhole as she released the breath trapped inside of her, water falling around her, as she took in a deep breath and crashed back down into the ocean below._

_She rose again, breaching the water as she jumped higher, rolled to land on her side, felt the water slapping against her body as she played in the ocean. It was a vague sense of amusement she could feel from him that made her laugh, made her release a sing-song sound as she clicked and squeaked, talking to the ashika – the sea lion youkai – she called friend. He followed her down into the depths, diving next to her, following her every turn as she spiraled and flipped, moving faster as she rose higher, certain that she would be able to do it this time, and shrieked with happiness as she broke through the surface, flying higher as she flipped once, twice, three times before diving back down into the water below._

_Laughter came from her in the pattern of her squeaks, the stuttered clicks, when her friend rammed the side of his body against hers, and she rolled in the water as she enjoyed the freedom of being able to play. Unlike their animal cousins, it was an unspoken understanding among marine youkai, that while they may hunt together in their youkai forms, play together, they never hunted – never ate – each other. Rolling her eyes when she looked over to see the ashika in his humanoid form, she dove beneath him, lifting him on her back behind her dorsal fin, as she rose higher to bring him to the surface of the water where he would be able to breathe._

_“I have missed you terribly, my friend,” he said to her, and she gave a low sing-song cry, the sound making it clear that she didn’t understand how he could miss her when she was there with him. “It has been centuries since you last swam in your true form, joined me in the play we once enjoyed so much. I do not know if this is my dream or yours, but I do know this,” he said, and she felt her mind slow at the sensation that she was floating, the air surrounding her as the water left her, her form smaller, more delicate. Gone were her fins, and in their place, were tiny arms with smaller fingers extending at the ends. “She is waiting for you. It is time, Chyokohime. The grief you once knew will be gone, a distant memory, replaced by the joys of being the mother you’ve always wished to be.”_

_“Ashika!” she called to her friend, darkness surrounding her once more, and heard the rolling chuckle of his easy laughter._

_“Do not be afraid!” he called to her as she felt the world around her spin._

_She felt as though she were moving, flying, the air around her propelling and cushioning her as easily as the sea once had, and though she was certain her eyes were open, she could see nothing but darkness all around._

_“I knew who each one of you were before you came to me, before you were ever inside of me.”_

_“Mother?” Amaya gasped, shaking her head as she tried to understand._

_“It is the power of the Kujira, a gift from Susanoo-no-Mikoto, the God of the Sea,” her mother told her._

_Amaya felt her mind still as she tried to remember the conversation from so long ago, the words she and her mother had shared the night of her thirtieth birthday. That night had been almost a decade before she had been sent on her hundred-year long journey to travel to all of the oceans and seas, to discover all there was, to explore the kingdom that was theirs and all that lived within, from the coldest waters of the arctic, to the warmth of the southern seas. It was the same journey that all those in her family were sent on, something that had to be done alone. Those same words – her mother’s wisdom – had been granted to her a century before she had first seen Satoshi standing on the barren cliffs overlooking the ocean, before she had made the choice to leave the water behind. Against her mother’s wishes, and in spite of her mother’s rage, she chose to follow the demands of her heart even when she hadn’t been certain that Satoshi had felt the same. She had known her life was meant to be with him, to be lived on land, long before her youkai-voice had ever spoken the truth to her, with a certainty she couldn’t deny. It was a time of innocence, when she had been curious about the one her mother had told her she was betrothed to from the southern oceans. A time when still believed her mother’s fairytales – her lies._

_“You will dream of the child you carry, the one you will keep, before they ever live inside you. The spirit of your child will come to you, greet you in your dreams, long before you become pregnant. It is the way of the Kujira,” her mother said, her words somehow wistful. “We see what will be, in our dreams, in the stillness. We are connected in a way that no other youkai knows or can understand. Our minds and our hearts are connected to each other, our youki interwoven as one. In the stillness, the darkness of the quiet, our youkai dance as one. All that we are and all that we can be is all of us together and each of us alone. We are many, and we are one. It is the way of Kujira – all Kujira, but we – shachi – have always been stronger.”_

_The sound of her mother’s voice faded away as the words haunted her, looping in her mind as she felt the warmth of the sun on her skin and let her head fall back, turning her face up to the sky above as she opened her eyes. Strands of gold fell down in delicate ribbons and wisps through the canopy of the trees, the leaves lit from behind by the sun. The scents of wood and earth, grass and wildflowers, surrounded her, cossetted her as the breeze slipped past her, lifting her midnight strands to dance in the air. The sweetness of pine and magnolia, tempered by cotton, and enriched by blackberries, apples, and orange blossoms perfumed the air, wrapping around her as she dropped her hands to the forest floor, leaning back against the tree behind her as she closed her eyes, smiling as she listened to the crunch of leaves and twigs._

_It was Satoshi’s rare talent that allowed these plants to grow around her, sharing the same space in the forest that they wouldn’t be able to naturally, if he didn’t possess the ability to bid the earth to grow as he did. She had never met an earth youkai – or any elemental land-dwelling youkai – before him. She didn’t know how truly special he was until she had learned that he was the only one able to do what he did. She laughed softly as she felt the leaves beneath her hands tremble and shift, thick green stalks rising from the earth to stand between her spread fingers. Opening her eyes, she turned her head to watch the emerald shafts rise higher only to culminate in a twisted bulb at the top. Leaves of green flared out to the sides as the golden trumpets of daffodils blossomed beside her, and she smiled as she cut through one of the reedy stalks with her claw, lifting the flower to bury her nose in the delicate petals._

_She blinked, a smile twisting her lips, as she watched over the curve of the golden flower as the young girl darted in front of her, tripping herself, as she rolled to lie in the leaves and grass. Her walnut hair, shot through with highlights of sorrel and burnt honey, fanned out across the ground around her, her porcelain cheeks flushed with coral as she laughed and lifted her hands high into the air, only to let her arms fall to the forest floor on either side of her. This child was full of light and laughter, barely older than five or six, and Amaya laughed when the girl turned her eyes to her, her breath catching in her throat. The girl’s eyes, swirling green with flecks of gold and white – meadow grass – they were her father’s eyes._

_“Mama!” the girl called to her, and Amaya couldn’t silence the laughter that came from her as she watched a young lamb race toward her daughter, the tiny creature bleating as it called to its friend before it, too, tumbled to roll in the leaves and grass. “Snow!” her daughter cried happily as she rolled to her side, hugging her arms around the creature that was only too happy to snuggle against her. “Mama, can Snow stay inside with me tonight? Ple-e-e-e-e-e-ase!”_

_“Vanessa,” she laughed as she shook her head. “Where would you put her?”_

_“In my bed!” the girl cheered happily, and Amaya shook her head as she looked up at the long shadow that fell over them both. “Papa!”_

_Satoshi sighed as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Did I hear you correctly, Vanessa?” he asked, amusement sparkling in his eyes. “You want Snow to sleep in your bed tonight?”_

_“Yes!” the girl cheered, and Amaya shrugged when her mate turned his head to meet her gaze._

_“Do you remember what I taught you?” he asked their daughter. “Do you remember how to create a door in the wall of your bedroom, so that Snow can get outside if she needs to?”_

_“Yes!” Vanessa cheered as she rose to stand, and jumped around in a circle, bounced on the balls of her feet. “I hold my hands on the wood and I close my eyes, and I ask the wall to turn soft, and then, when the hole is big enough, I let it become hard again.”_

_“Go make the door for Snow, and then come back to us,” he instructed her as he knelt down. “Once that is done, and I know that Snow can fit through it easily, then you can take her inside.”_

_“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Vanessa cried out as she ran to her father, kissing his cheek before darting back to the house behind them._

_“Six years old,” he said as he moved to sit next to Amaya, and she smiled as she tipped her head back against the tree behind her._

_“You know she believes quite firmly that we are faeries and that we live in Ferngully,” Amaya told him with amusement, laughing as she shook her head._

_“Whatever gave her that idea?” Satoshi asked, a bewildered smile turning his lips up at the corners, the white and gold flecks in his green eyes sparkling with mirth._

_“Considering that we have the cabin by the road we live in during the winter, but the rest of the year we live out here, far removed from anyone else, in the home you grew for us from the twisted roots and braided ferns?” she asked in return with a teasing grin._

_“Faeries?” he repeated with a laugh. “Well, at least fae folk are closer to youkai than demons,” he said, and rolled his eyes. “Does that make me the Faery King?” he asked, and Amaya laughed._

_“I think so,” she agreed, and looked back when she heard the pitter patter of her daughter’s running footsteps, and the tiny stuttering hoofbeats of the lamb she’d befriended._

_“Mama!” the girl shouted, laughing as she darted closer, and ran to sit in her mother’s lap, Snow bleating as Vanessa lifted the lamb to sit in her lap, and wrapped her arms around the creature._

_“Yes, my darling?” Amaya asked with a chuckle._

_“Someday,” Vanessa said with a dreamy smile. “I’m going to grow roses.”_

Amaya gasped as she sat up in her bed, the blankets falling to pool in her lap as the dream faded into the recesses of her mind. Tears of joy and disbelief stung her eyes, as she covered her mouth with her hand, taking comfort from the soft thrum of her mate’s youki. Even as he slept next to her, their youki were tied together, braided around each other as the energy rose and fell in an endless pulsing wave that had no beginning, no end. Breathing in deeply as she opened her eyes, she turned her gaze on Satoshi, watching him as she slept. Centuries ago, longing so deeply for the telepathic connection of the pod she had left behind, Amaya had taught Satoshi this skill, the ability to speak through his youki. He had been confused, rejecting the very act of it as first, until he had felt the connection, the bond. It was as easy and as effortless, as breathing for him now, she thought, a smile tipping her lips as her mind drifted back to the night she had first began his instruction.

_Satoshi shook his head as he stood from the dirt floor of the wooden hut, turning away from her as he paced to the end of the room and back. Amaya winced at the abrasive feeling of his youki, the way he instinctually tried to put up a barrier around himself, and she shook her head._

_“This isn’t . . .” He fell silent with a sigh, turning to look at her as the rhythmic drumbeats began to sound, the elder men of the village they had been welcomed into in Vanuatu calling the young men of the village to rise with the coming dawn. “What you’re talking about, Amaya, what you want to teach me to do, it isn’t done. It’s one thing to reach out with your youki, to feel someone else’s, to assess the danger in an area, or who’s lurking in the dark, but what you’re talking about . . . ” He shook his head._

_“It was among my people. It . . . For Kujira, we are all connected as one by our minds, our hearts, some even said our youkai were bound together. Our youki ebbed and flowed around each other. We were never separate. We didn’t simply reach out to pull back as land-dwelling youkai do, we . . . We were all one. We shared everything – our thoughts, our emotions, our memories, our souls. I want that connection with you. I promise, Satoshi, I promise you it’s not bad,” she said, watching as he closed his eyes, regret darkening his expression as he released a heavy exhalation, not quite a sigh._

_“It’s not that, I just . . . “ He moved back to sit in front of her, facing her, as he reached out to touch her face, bringing her close for a chaste kiss. “There was a youkai my father knew, ancient, even by youkai standards. Two? Three thousand years old? He used to tell these stories, said that all youkai used to be able to hear the thoughts of other youkai – not their youkai-voices, no, but their actual thoughts and not just of their mates, either, but of everyone, but that the ancient leaders put an end to it long before my father was ever even born.”_

_Amaya frowned as she shook her head. “Why?”_

_“I don’t know, they considered it a threat, I guess. For all I know it’s nothing more than a story, a legend. I . . . “ He shook his head as he closed his eyes, his chin lowering until it almost touched his chest as he released a heavy breath. “I’m doing it again,” he admitted as he looked up to meet her gaze. “I’m shutting you out, aren’t I?”_

_Amaya ducked her head, looking down at her hands folded around the carved wooden cup in her lap. What was she supposed to tell him? Did he want to hear how alone she felt, that even though they were mated and she was with him, that she didn’t truly feel connected to him the way she wished to? That even though he held her at night while they slept, or sat with her as they watched the sun rise and set, that she felt alone then, too? To say any of that felt like useless whining. She pushed down her emotions, swallowing back the darkness of isolation that clouded her heart, reminded herself to smile as she looked up to meet his gaze._

_“It’s all right,” she assured him, blinking quickly to stave off the tears stinging behind her eyes. “Sometimes, I forget that I’m a land-dwelling youkai now. I still have a lot to learn. Like hugging and – “_

_“Amaya,” he cut her off, reaching out to hook her chin with a crooked finger, turning her face toward him when she glanced away. “I can feel your emotions, that’s the bond of true mates,” he reminded her as she met his gaze. “I hate it when you try to make things like this okay for me. Do you think I can’t feel it when you hurt so badly you want to cry, but you smile for me instead?”_

_“I can’t ask you to change for me,” she denied him._

_“You left the_ ocean _for me,” he reminded her incredulously, his brows furrowed high on his forehead. “You think I don’t know how huge that was for you? How painful it was?” He let his hand drop as he held her gaze, the furrow between his brows smoothing out as his gaze softened. “How painful it still is? I would do anything to take away that loneliness and sorrow you try to hide from me, and if learning to do this will do that, then teach me, Amaya.”_

_Her lips trembled, the tears stinging behind her eyes blurring her gaze as they overflowed, slipping down her cheeks. “Close your eyes,” she whispered, unable to speak any louder. “When you feel me reach out, return it, touch me with your youki the way I touch you.”_

_She took in a deep breath, reminded herself that he was willing to learn, as she fought against the memory of his earlier rejection. Her eyes fell closed as she unfurled her youki, reaching out to gently brush it against his, twining her energy around him. She opened her eyes when she heard his gasp, met his wide-eyed gaze as he began to respond slowly, his youki reaching out to her in return, twisting and braiding around hers. He tried to subdue her youki at first, an instinctual reaction, she guessed. She waited, maintaining the gentle ebb and flow until he learned to relinquish the need to dominate, learning to be calm, instead, to dance his youki beside hers. She relaxed finally, her tears falling faster as the connection she had yearned for, for so long, was finally hers to behold._

_“No, don’t pull back,” she cautioned him when she felt his youki retreating. “Stay bonded with me.”_

_He nodded quietly as his youki pulsed with each beat of his heart. She felt him relax, the feel of his youki growing stronger around hers as he grew more confident and comfortable with the connection. She guided him slowly, lifting their energy higher, spiraling it around them as she taught him to move with her as one, only to bring it back down, the soothing flowing thrum of their interwoven youki holding strong as it faded to the background. Amaya smiled as she lifted a thread of her youki to brush against his, pulling back a moment later to let it rejoin the braided connection between them. He responded in kind, maintaining the woven connection as he lifted part of his youki, brushing it against hers before returning it to the quiet thrum that ebbed and flowed with the beating of their hearts._

_“This is . . .” He shook his head as he stared at her in wonder. “This is the connection that you had with your family in the ocean? This is what you’ve been without for so long?”_

_“It pales in comparison, but . . . yes,” she replied, blinking slowly as she felt him wrap her in his youki, pressing in gently as he held her without ever touching her. “See?” she said with a tremulous smile. “Once you feel the connection, everything else comes naturally.”_

_“I thought our bond as mates was strong, but this . . . I don’t even know how to describe this.” He shook his head, staring at her in awe. “It is true, isn’t it? There was a time when all youkai were connected like this, could even hear the thoughts of others as they spoke with their youki?”_

_“I don’t know,” she said, laughing softly as she shook her head. “Before you, all I’ve ever known was the ocean. Kujira – all Kujira – could connect with each other as my family did, maybe not always as strongly with those of different clans or types. We could communicate with most other marine youkai in the same way, ashika and iruka were the easiest to speak with. Shironagasukujira, were the hardest to speak with. They never took humanoid form. It was said that that was beyond them, beyond their reach.” She tipped her head, her lips pursed, brows gently furrowed, as she considered her own words. “In fact, aside from us – shachi – the only other Kujira to take humanoid form were Zatōkujira. As far as I know, no other Kujira – not even those smaller than us – took humanoid form. ” She blinked as she shook her head, dismissing her wandering mind as she met her mate’s gaze._

_“You mean to say that only orca and humpback youkai ever took humanoid form?” he asked, and she nodded thoughtfully. “Why?”_

_“You have to understand, when I made the choice to live on land, in this form, not a single Kujira had left the ocean – not in five hundred years. It simply isn’t done. The draw of the ocean, to be one with the water and all that was around us, there’s no place we would rather be. But for me, the draw to be with you, no matter where that may lead, was stronger that the pull of the ocean.” She released a slow breath as she dragged her teeth over her bottom lip. “It takes effort, a concentrated deliberate choice to take humanoid form, to leave the water. Mother always said that we – shachi and Zatōkujira – were more spiritually connected to the life around us, that Susanoo-no-Mikoto granted us awareness, and that was why we could.”_

_Satoshi’s brow furrowed as he nodded slowly, the feel of his youki curious and energetic. “How far can this connection remain intact?” he asked, and she laughed softly as she shrugged._

_“I don’t know. Distance . . . It was hard to judge in the water, but as long as we could hear each other singing, no matter how soft our voices, we would remain connected.” Amaya chuckled as she turned her gaze to the doorway covered by long swaths of tapa cloth, rolling her eyes as the rhythmic drumming grew louder, more insistent. “You’d better go. The villagers are expecting you to help them fish.”_

_He leaned close to kiss her, his lips lingering against hers for a few moments before pulling back. “I’ll see you in a few hours, aisuru. Where will I find you when I return?”_

_She smiled as she bit her bottom lip, dragging it through her teeth as she chuckled. “In the largest hut, the one without doors or walls. The elder women and mothers of the village will be teaching me how to turn the paper mulberry tree into tapa cloth. I’ll be learning how to make clothing and tapestries as they do. They’ll be teaching me how to weave baskets, and braid the coconut fibers into rope, and . . . everything else.” She stood when he did, bracing one hand on his shoulder as she leaned up on her toes to kiss him. “If ever you cannot find me, simply close your eyes and tug on that low vibration you feel right now, follow where it leads and you will find me.”_

The memory faded, her lips curling up in a smile as the whisper of drumbeats faded into the darkness around her. The soft pings and taps of the summer rain on the window pane called to her, and she looked at the glass, watching as the rivulets of water streamed down. The whisper of voices, the scent of forest and fruit on the air surrounding her as her dream came back to her, her dream-daughter’s voice echoing in her mind as she bit the edge of her lip. She blinked in the darkness as her chest heaved, her breaths coming from her in broken gasps before turning into sobbing laughs, as she lifted her hands to cover her mouth as she shook her head.

“I always thought it was nonsense,” she whispered as she combed her fingers through her hair, pulled the thick locks back from her face. “I never dreamed of any of the others,” she said, speaking her thoughts out loud, and began to laugh as the tears filling her eyes spilled onto her cheeks. “Vanessa,” she whispered the name of her dream daughter, her lips trembling as she smiled, and looked at her mate sleeping beside her. “This time will be different,” she promised him, touching her hand to his dark hair, smoothing the backs of her knuckles down over his cheek as she watched him sleep. “This time I dreamed of her.”

 

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

****

 

Satoshi lifted his left hand to his face, his eyes falling closed as he gripped his temples between his thumb and middle fingers. He tipped his head forward, the braid securing his cherry wood hair falling over his shoulder as he dropped his hand with a sigh, green eyes flecked with gold and white opening as he looked across the room to stare at nothing. For as old as he was, for as old as he felt some days, he still didn’t look a day over three hundred. But today, he felt the wealth of his age in the depth of his bones. Part of him was grateful to be alone, the solitude comforting for the task ahead, even as he worried over his mate. She would be gone for a few hours, at least, delivering the patterned tapestries she’d made on the loom, the quilts she had sewn, and the clothing she’d created – the cotton, linen, wool, and tapa cloths made by her own hand – to the woman at the farmer’s market who sold them for her, and picking up any money made from the sales for the week before.

The hand-pressed paper she made, sewn into the leather journals he created from the animal hides gathered when he hunted their dinner, were always in high demand, bringing in a greater price simply because he only made a few each month. The seedlings he’d created - something Amaya had convinced him to start doing almost fifty years ago – would be delivered to the woman’s husband at another stand, along with the journals, to be sold as well. The plants at times brought in more money than Amaya’s creations, or his journals did, especially since the man who sold them had learned that it didn’t matter how dry or wet the soil they were buried in was, they would always grow strong and bear fruit.

Amaya would be stopping by the sheep farm on her way home, he reminded himself, as he mentally reviewed her to-do list. She would be helping the farmer – a very kind, very old, human man – to sheer his sheep. It was a trick between them – he and Amaya – helping human farmers to sheer their sheep, alpaca or other animals bred for their wool, using only their claws while never letting the humans know that that was how they were doing it. The animals preferred it, and he was fairly certain that it felt to the creatures as though they were simply being petted, even as the substantial weight of their wool was removed.

 _‘She is safe. You would know if she wasn’t,’_ his youkai-voice reminded him, and he nodded to himself as he blew out a heavy breath, still able to feel the whisper of her youki against his. How much of that feeling was the bond between mates, and how much of it was the connection of their youki, he didn’t rightfully know. _‘Stop trying to find a reason to not do what she asked you to do, Satoshi. I know it scares you, but you agreed to do this.’_

Satoshi looked down at the closed book sitting on the low table in front of him. At twenty inches tall, fifteen inches wide, and eight inches thick, the tome weighed close to forty pounds on its own. It had been an impulse buy, something about it had felt as though it belonged with them, at least that was what his mate had said. The pages inside were made of hand-pressed linen paper that felt as though it had been brushed until it was as soft as down feathers, in a color that wasn’t white, but wasn’t quite grey either, stuck somewhere in between as though they had been removed from time itself.

He released a heavy breath, the exhalation half-hearted, almost defeated, as he reached out to smooth the fingertips of his right hand over the leather-bound wood carving. An ironic smile twisted his lips as he exhaled, the sound of it almost amused. The scene that had been carefully crafted into the wood by youkai claws – the carving too fine, too precise to have been made by any human tool – depicted a moonlit night, the beach below the stars cast in shadows as rolling waves crashed over the sands, and mountains overlooked the two lone figures standing on the beach at the crest of the sea, the ripples of water distorting the tops of their feet but not touching their ankles.

The woman’s flowing gown rippled behind her in the wind, the man’s arm wrapped around her shoulders as they stared out at the ocean in front of them. It was then that he noticed the tiny object in the water nearly hidden by the frothing turbulent waves, too small to be a boat, too large to be flower, and as he looked closer, he could see it was a tiny covered basket. An infant burial at sea, he surmised as he sat back with a sigh. There was something wholly beautiful and completely damning about the image, a mockery of he and his mate, he supposed, and shook his head. No, that wasn’t right. He knew Amaya found this image hauntingly beautiful, it was just . . .

 _‘It’s a little too accurate, isn’t it?’_ his youkai-voice asked. _‘It makes you think of things you don’t want to remember. A life you would give anything to forget.’_

 _‘ . . . Yeah,’_ he answered with a silent sigh. _‘She wants me to write my story. The truth, as I know it, about where I came from – my childhood, my family, their history. Something for our child – children – to have when they grow up. Something to remember us by, I guess.’_ As excited as she was for the future, his mate also seemed to be preparing for the end.

 _‘Neither of you had easy pasts before you met, and the time since taking her as our mate hasn’t been simple, either. Maybe this was easier for her, a way to heal. Maybe it’ll be easier for both of you,’_ his youkai responded, releasing a heavy sigh. _‘And if nothing else, it will be the darkness of your truths left behind when you’re gone. Ten children, Satoshi. Ten babies. And not a single one of them lived past their first year. Some didn’t even make it past their first month.’_

He closed his eyes as he felt the weight of all they had lost overwhelm him, and bent forward as he wrapped his arms over his stomach, his face contorting in a grimace. His mouth opened wide in a silent cry that was so raw, so aching, there was no sound that could ever express it. Every life that had grown inside Amaya’s belly had been one he could not forget. Every child brought into existence – shachi – just like their mother, to be held, to be loved, only to choke on the very air they needed to breathe as they died slowly in her arms, or in his.

He’d never told Amaya what he’d done, he thought as he closed his eyes. After their third baby died, he’d had to know why, and when he had left her sleeping in their seaside home to return their dead infant to the sea, he’d taken the time to cut his tiny daughter with his claw, to open her chest. What he found had both stunned and saddened him. Her lungs were oversized. There was barely any room at all between her lungs and her ribcage. Even her heart had been compressed because the organs were too big. She had suffocated slowly – they all had suffocated slowly – because they were meant to live in the water, and the size of her lungs was proof of that.

How many times had Amaya told him of what it was like to live in the ocean? To watch as one of her sisters gave birth, and that calf swam with them all? _Kujira live in the ocean. We are born, and we will die in the ocean. It is in our blood._ Those were the words she had told him, and when he thought on it now, he couldn’t help but think of them as some kind of macabre warning.

Amaya had told him that she was ready to try again, that she wanted another child. She was ready, he thought as he shook his head, as he schooled his features, but he didn’t know that he was. Even for all his reservations, for all the heartache it had brought them both, he had given her what she asked for. She was stronger than he was. She always had been, he admitted to himself, and maybe, he thought, that was why he had agreed.

It took effort to swallow back his grief, to force it into the dark recesses of his mind and lock it behind the heavy steel doors of his heart. To be strong for her, to act as though the memories of their deceased children didn’t hurt him as much as it did, even learning how to hide it from the connection they shared through their youki was taxing, but he did it – all of it – for her. He closed his eyes as he took in a deep breath, centering himself, as he reined in his youki, pulling it back from the grief he had allowed momentary freedom. A bittersweet smile twisted his lips as he shook his head slowly and held out his hand toward the honeysuckle vines that climbed down from the slats in the top of the walls to pool on the floor in the exposed dirt around the inside wall of the house near the front door.

He focused his youki, released only what was needed to restore life to the plants, taking from them the agony that had withered them. It was the one thing he had learned to control, or at least taught himself to correct, he thought as he sat back against the couch. Emotions that were too strong to be controlled, that demanded to be released – anger, fear, the agony of grief, even the fires of passion – the earth responded to all of it without pause, without reservation. Where fear or anger would shake the ground until it crumbled or thrust large boulders of earth into the air as an attack, hate would rip fissures and deep valleys, collapsing and swallowing anything that dared get in its path. Grief had the power to wither those things that lived around him, his despair turning once vibrant plants and trees into sickly greasy dark green – almost black – rot, and sometimes, even returning them to dust.

Passion, he thought as a smile tipped his lips. Well, that was a whole other ballgame, as they said, wasn’t it? The night he’d first kissed Amaya, the night he’d felt his heart swell and overflow with love, sakura trees and appeared out of the ground surrounding them in a circle as they grew taller, fuller, branches of the trees braiding together until they were inseparable, perfect white and pale pink blossoms blooming in seconds as they shone with unparalleled radiance against the backdrop of deep green leaves under the light of the full moon. That circle of trees still stood there on the mountainside overlooking the ocean, their flowers never fading, never falling, shimmering under the light of the moon. The humans, and even most youkai, believed that the land had been blessed by the Kami.

 _‘If only they knew,’_ his youkai chided him, and he chuckled.

 _‘You think they’d be upset if I told them all that it was just an earth youkai getting his first kiss from his mate?’_ he asked, and smiled when his youkai laughed heartily.

 _‘I doubt they’d believe you. They’d think you were some kind of heretic.’_ His youkai sighed heavily, the sound resigned. _‘Are you going to do it? Are you going to write your – our – story?’_

 _‘ . . . I don’t know,’_ he admitted as he covered his face with his hands and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and reached out for the giant book again. _‘Should I?’_

 _‘They say the truth can set you free,’_ his youkai offered.

_‘It could also damn me to Hell. What he did . . . How do I write that? How do I even speak about that?’_

_‘You write about it because you must, because it was never your burden to bear.’_

_‘Not my . . . ? Are you kidding me? He did all of it – every damn bit of it – to create me. How is it not my burden to bear?’_

For once, his youkai-voice was quiet and Satoshi sighed as he reached for the book. He lifted the heavy cover, his gaze falling on the first page and the kanji gracefully inscribed in his mate’s careful hand. He fell silent as he brought his hand to the page, tracing his fingertips over the characters, his meadow grass eyes following every line, every curve. She had translated the inscription below in English, and his eyes softened as he studied the flowing loops and angles of her elegant calligraphic handwriting.

_This book, my children, is a collection of memories, of stories we’ve told you, and of the things that we haven’t. It holds the answers to questions you may never think to ask, and others you may fear to. Who we are will not change because of what you read within these pages, but perhaps there will be things you understand after, that you wish you never did. Remember always, that without condition or compromise, we always have, and always will, love you._

The accuracy in her gentle words was enough to give him pause, and Satoshi closed his eyes before reaching across the table to grasp the fountain pen she had left behind. He unscrewed the metal utensil at the center, pulling it apart to check the plastic ink tube tucked inside, and nodded to himself as he secured the instrument back into one piece. His handwriting wasn’t nearly as beautiful as hers, but then again, he thought, he hadn’t been taught to write English by a French master of calligraphy as she had, either.

Pushing the table away from the couch, he sat down on the wood floor of the house he’d built himself, and pulled the heavy volume down to rest in his lap, propping it against the table as he brought the tip of the pen to the middle of the page, just below Amaya’s inscriptions.

 _‘To my children, the children of my children, and all those we leave behind,’_ he wrote in his native Japanese, and paused as he rested the bottom of the pen against his lips in thought before he brought the tip back to the paper. _‘You have heard the stories from your mother and myself, the tales we told you of our histories, but contained within these pages are the truths of the whispers, the darkness we dared not tell you before. Remember us, my children, my grandchildren, as you knew us, as we are, for in these pages you may not recognize the people we once were.’_

It was a good start, he supposed as he read over the characters he’d marked down once more, before translating it into English below. It added to his mate’s words of introduction, but was it really anything more than a carefully crafted warning – a reader beware? He had been able to hear the words she hadn’t said, felt the tightness in her youki, the jagged vibrations through their bond. He had seen the trace of tightness around her eyes when she’d stepped out of their bedroom that morning with the book in her arms and the pen in her hand with the tiny box of extra ink cartridges. She’d been writing in it for weeks now, and where he had thought she had kept it as a journal for herself, he had found out just how wrong he had been.

This book wasn’t a private journal, nor was it something that was intended to be held and read to their children at night. It wasn’t meant to be a fanciful tale, full of hopes and dreams or princesses and dragons. This was a book that they were meant to leave behind, a tome of answers that their children would be able to read once they were dead and gone, cut down by one of the Tai Youkai’s hunters, or by one of the crazed youkai hunting them to experiment on his mate, or himself. People crazy enough – insane beyond reason – who believed the same lies his father had. Or worse, he thought with a deeply indrawn breath, those who were looking to capture his mate, to sell her to someone else, to be held for all eternity like some kind of prized possession once she’d been forced to retake her true form.

He shook his head to dispel his dark thoughts as he looked down at the page in front of him and closed his eyes as he took in a calming breath. There was a nagging feeling in the back of his mind, a whisper from somewhere beyond his youkai-voice, deeper than himself, that told him this child would survive, that this child would need answers once they were gone. This book was to be their last words, hold truths that he and Amaya weren’t strong enough to give voice to. And their deaths, he thought as he signed his name and date at the bottom – _23 April, 2050_ – following it up with the city and state they were in, the national park they called home – it was all his fault. One single moment when he had lost all control, when he had become the monster his father had always wanted him to be, when he had become death itself.

 _‘Do you really think that, Satoshi?’_ his youkai-voice asked as he pulled out the ribbon just enough to slip his finger in between the pages it marked, and opened the book to somewhere near a third of the way through. _‘You do . . . don’t you?’_ the voice prodded when he remained silent, smoothing his hand over the blank page before he rubbed his fingertips against his brow in an entirely soul-weary kind of way. _‘You see yourself as some kind of monster? Tosh, you’re not bad, you’re not evil. He was_ insane _. You need to remember that. How can you believe any of what he said?’_

 _‘I never wanted to believe him!’_ he denied, and heard his youkai sigh.

 _‘So, what? You believe him now?’_ his youkai asked in return. _‘If that were the case, you never would have given Amaya a child the first time so long ago, or this time, two days ago. You would never have taken that chance, I know you. Which means that you don’t really believe him . . . Do you?’_

Satoshi released a heavy sigh as he capped the pen, scooting down further across the floor and leaned his head back against the couch behind him, the back of his head resting on the seat cushion. That was the problem, wasn’t it? He didn’t really know what he believed anymore. For so long now, he had hung onto the belief that his father’s beliefs, his actions, were all just the ravings of a mad man, but after L.A. there was a part of him that could no longer ignore it, either. He closed his eyes as he took in a deep breath, releasing the air in a slow exhalation that was as tired as it was resigned.

 _‘Look at everything that’s happened, from the moment I met Amaya, to the moment that I refused the mating and found out the truth about everything, to right now. The only reason Amaya survived that doctor is because I found her in time, because I . . .’_ he sighed as he shook his head. _‘Because in my fear and my anger, in my haste to get her away, I lost control. I was so angry, and I . . . I_ wanted _to hurt them, to make them as terrified as they have always made us and because of that, I tore a city to its very foundations. That was only supposed to be a fissure just big enough for that bastard to fall into. What happened – that earthquake – that was never meant to happen.’_

His youkai was quiet, the feel of the silence heavy and dark. It made Satoshi wonder, not for the first time, just how much of their father’s mad ravings his youkai believed. Satoshi had cast them aside, believing his father nothing more than a lunatic turned murderous, but he had always been tempered by his youkai, encouraged to create life, and cautioned every day not to take it – to use only what was needed of his power to get away, to run, but not to fight. He felt his youkai’s sigh more than he heard it, his attention drawn back to the voice inside of him, and felt the gravity of the things his youkai wouldn’t say.

 _‘It’s because I never wanted you to have to find out if you were the killer your father wanted, or not. For all he tried to do to you, for all he_ did _to you under the guise of training, you were never able to wield water on its own as he wanted you to, and maybe that’s been our saving grace. But our power’s grown, Satoshi. It’s more than tripled what it once was.’_ His youkai-voice fell silent once more as it waited, as it contemplated, and Satoshi wondered just why the feel of his youkai was so serious, grave beyond his understanding. _‘Do you remember? That . . ._ surge _. . . we felt on the night we turned one thousand? I never even thought we’d make it this far, but we did. You’ve felt surges like that before so many times, but not quite as powerful as it was that night. You were born under a blood moon, and on that night, there was another one. Whether it was coincidence, or not, that surge of power, that – that_ rage _– that was something new.’_

 _‘That rage was because they took Amaya, because they thought to lock her up, to experiment on her, on our baby still growing inside of her,’_ he protested, feeling the anger rolling inside of him, the earth beneath him trembling quietly in response, and felt the answering caution from his youkai.

 _‘Then . . . Figure out what happened,’_ his youkai advised, and Satoshi frowned as he got the feeling that his youkai hadn’t said what it wanted to say. _‘We felt that surge at night, but she wasn’t taken until the next day. You have the maps, the ones that lay out every single fault line, even the minor ones. Study it – memorize it – until you know it by heart. And don’t ever let what happened in L.A. happen again. And if . . . by some dark miracle,_ if _Amaya gives birth to the child your father was trying so desperately to create, the one like you, but stronger . . . If it happens –‘_

 _‘He was insane,’_ Satoshi argued. _‘What I am came about through the torture, rape, and bloodshed of innocent people, of youkai who had done nothing to gain his attention other than exist,’_ he snarled in return. _‘And thank kami he didn’t know that Kujira were real – were anything other than myths back then, because the very thought of what he would have done to Amaya terrifies me.’_

 _‘_ If _it happens, if she has that child,’_ his youkai cautioned him sternly. _‘You make_ damn _certain that they know what kind of damage their power can cause, and you keep it from happening. Your father knew what he was doing, knew the power you would hold, and knew exactly what he wanted you to be – what_ any _youkai would want someone like you to be. Be grateful that for everything he did in your youth, that he was never able to make you use the powers of water on its own. No matter the torture he put you through, you could split the earth but never raise the sea. He raised you with hate, but you were stronger than he was. So, you must do everything in your power to raise your child with happiness and love, but always –_ always _– with caution, and don’t you dare let another youkai too close to them. Because you know what will happen. Your child would either be weaponized or killed. Don’t ever let anyone harm your child, but above all, don’t let someone turn them into the weapon your father was trying so desperately to create.’_

 _‘I – I won’t,’_ he promised. _‘I won’t ever let that happen. I won’t ever let a child like me do what I did. I’d never let another youkai near them. I wouldn’t put them in that kind of danger.’_

His youkai sighed, the sound all together tired and worn. _‘Do us both a favor?’_ his youkai asked, and Satoshi frowned. _‘Let Amaya see how much you’re hurting, how scared you are. She might be able to feel it through your bond as mates and through your braided youki, but you need to grieve with her. Every time you’ve lost a child you’ve been stoic throughout it all, only grieving when you’re alone. I know –_ I know _– it’s not the Japanese way to show emotion, but the way she was raised . . . when one grieved, they all grieved. . . she’s hurting just as much as you are. Just let her see that. You tend to forget far too often that the family she came from was vastly different than yours.’_

_‘Meaning what?’_

_‘Meaning that when you try to hide your feelings from her, you leave her feeling isolated. Don’t you remember what she told you so long ago? The hearts and minds and youki of her pod were shared among all, no one was separate. It wasn’t just communication, it was . . . everything. Her youkai talks to me sometimes, when you’re both sleeping. Her youkai longs just as desperately for that connection with me as Amaya longs for it with you. I’ve felt it when her youkai tries to share her memories with me the way it would have been shared in her pod, and that she can’t, frustrates and pains her youkai just as much as it frustrates Amaya. She tells me the things Amaya would never tell you because Amaya knows you don’t understand and she’d never want to hurt you. Her youkai tells me when Amaya feels . . . ‘_ The voice inside him trailed off as though unsure that it should be speaking what had been said in confidence.

 _‘When she feels what?’_ Satoshi demanded, unsure if he was angered or hurt by all his youkai was telling him.

 _‘When Amaya feels abandoned.’_ His youkai heaved a sigh. _‘Tosh, you may not realize it, but when you try so hard to hide your emotions from Amaya, you’re pulling back your youki from her and raising up a wall with it at the same time. You’re severing that connection and leaving her alone. Maybe you don’t know that you’re doing it because you don’t feel it as strongly as she does because you didn’t grow up with that kind of a connection in your family, but when you pull back, it hurts her. Just stop hurting her.’_

Satoshi nodded as he closed his eyes, his breath caught somewhere between his lips and his lungs. He tipped his head up from where it rested, his chin lowering to touch his chest as he took in a tumultuous breath. Tears burned behind his eyes, clogged his throat, dulled his senses. He had been there to hold Amaya when she cried, when she hadn’t been able to keep going after losing one of their children, or when she had simply been too scared when they had been forced to run, to leave the homes they’d made when the gyrfalcon youkai or one of his ilk chasing them had found them yet again.

But for all of that, he knew that she was still stronger than he was. Because through it all, he realized as he closed his eyes, one tear slipping down his cheek, each time he had closed off his emotions to be strong for her, he had unknowingly broken the connection between them, and she had never told him just how much she hurt because of it. She bore the pain in silence, never letting him know how isolated she felt, how alone she was. And in that moment, he promised himself he would never leave her alone again.

Satoshi took in a deep calming breath as he opened his eyes, blinking slowly down at the open book in his lap, his brows furrowing as he stared in confusion at the drop of moisture drying on the pressed linen fiber page. He lifted his hand to his cheek, felt the dampness of his skin, the furrow between his brows growing deeper. He didn’t even know he was crying, he didn’t feel the tears, but that didn’t stop them from falling.

His heart beat faster as he closed his eyes, the muscle in his jaw ticking as he felt the whisper of memories tickle at the back of his mind. Images and voices best left forgotten rose from the deepest recesses of his mind, haunting him like ghosts. He fisted his hands at the feel of the darkness, the malignancy, of them all, and the more he tried to push the memories back, the more powerfully they came forth, until they were too strong to be stopped, too loud to be silenced. And like so many angry wraiths seeking recognition, he was helpless against them.

_The moon was in full view, shining down from a sky free of storm clouds or rain. It was the first dry night they’d seen in almost a month. It was a simple time, even with the expectations and trainings his father insisted upon, the Kamakura period brought with it a measure of peace for their region, a kind of graceful solitude. He’d been hearing whispers through the village below them, the youkai who lived on his father’s lands saying that the Inu no Taisho’s mate had born him a son. Sesshoumaru, they said he was called. The Great Dog finally had his heir, he thought with a nod, the grass whispering beneath his feet as he walked._

_How many times had he thought of leaving this place? He was two hundred years old, he thought, turning his gaze up to look at the moon covered by a thin veil of gossamer clouds. He had tried leaving before, several times, only to find himself right back here, under his father’s thumb, and why? Because of all his father had done to gain control over the lands he called his, the youkai living just outside those borders had seen fit to attack Satoshi each and every time he’d dared to cross that invisible line. And if that hadn’t been enough to keep him here, his father had made certain to punish him for daring to dishonor him by leaving. Those punishments, he thought with a sigh, usually left him unable to leave his bed, let alone walk, for days on end._

_He sighed as he pushed back those dark thoughts, letting the soft scents of the wisteria and fringed iris that grew wild in these lands soothe him. Closing his eyes as he came to a stop, standing still in the open field, he knelt down and buried his fingers in the dirt up to the first knuckles. The impassive expression on his face didn’t change, though his green eyes flecked with gold and white brightened in the darkness as he watched twisted roots rise from the ground, spiraling higher as they wrapped around each other before spreading out into a myriad of branches – some thick enough to sit on, and others thinner than his pinky finger. Tiny deep green buds appeared on the branches, covering the tree in the darkest jade, as some of those buds became leaves while others blossomed forth into the delicate blooms of star magnolia._

_He’d pay for his actions later, he thought as he stood, brushing the bits of earth from his hands as he stared at the tree, watching as the flowers and leaves danced beneath the starlit night. Growing the earth brought him such a sense of comfort and peace, but for a reason he couldn’t fathom, it served only to enrage his father. He turned his face into the night wind as he closed his eyes, resuming his journey once more as he looked up at the moon, watching as the hazy shadows of clouds parted to reveal the brilliance of the full moon._

_The gentle breeze swirling around him offered a welcome relief from the warmth of the day that had ended only moments ago, and Hayashi Satoshi shook his head as he fisted his hands at his sides. He had gone for a walk to clear his mind, to free himself of the unsettling feeling that hadn’t left him all day, and he’d grown the tree to comfort himself, but none of it seemed to help.  By all rights, it was a beautiful evening, the kind of night he would spend months waiting for, just to be able to sit on the cliffs overhanging the sea below and watch the roll of the waves on the ocean’s surface, the small crests tipped in white that would dance and churn only to be broken into droplets and mists by the release of air from the blowholes of so many whales._

_But if this night was so beautiful, he thought as he walked down the path that led to the chambers he kept in his father’s massive estate, then why did it feel so ominous? The closer he came to the door of his chambers, the more he felt something inside of him scream as it clawed at him and demanded that he turn – that he run. His eyes narrowed as the air stilled for barely a moment, just long enough for him to fully sense what he had only caught the barest hint of before. There was a youkai in his chambers – female, but there was something unsettling about her. Feeling that she was both ice and water, not quite one, but not quite the other, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end._

_“What have you done?” he asked, his voice low, absent of emotion, as he looked at his father from the corner of his eye._

_“You will take this one as your mate,” his father commanded regally as he threw back the shoji door and pointed at the girl sitting inside, her legs tucked beneath her, hands on her thighs as she sat seiza._

_“I don’t even know her,” Satoshi said as he looked at the girl, before turning his gaze on his father._

_“Your familiarity with her is of no importance to me,” his father declared, and crossed his arms over his chest. “She has been bred specifically for you. She possesses no worth other than the child she bears you.”_

_“What?” Satoshi shook his head as he stared at his father, his brows furrowed. “What do you mean ‘she has been bred for me’?” he demanded._

_Daichi turned, leveling his unamused stare on his son, and narrowed his eyes. “Exactly what I have said. Should you not take her as your mate, she will be discarded, and left to rot. But you_ will _take her as your mate because I command it,” his father ordered, and nodded toward the girl sitting inside. “Now.”_

 _“I will not mate her, or anyone else, with you –_ or anyone _– watching,” Satoshi refused, ignoring the growl his father had issued. “Be clear now, chichiue. Speak plainly of her origins.”_

_Daichi smiled, the expression full of satisfaction and pride in his own actions. “Years ago,” he began, “four hundred, to be exact, I came across a prophecy that spoke of a creature of earth and sea, a youkai stronger than all others of their kind. One who would be able to break the world apart and drown it in turn. Strong enough to divide the tides, or so the scroll told. From the father of earth unfurled, and a mother of the ocean, and I knew it would be my son who would be the father,” he said, and Satoshi felt the breath still in his chest as he stared blankly at his father. “I would never allow it to be anyone else.”_

_“Divide the tide”?” Satoshi repeated as he shook his head, his brow furrowed. “What does that even mean?”_

_“Who cares what it means! That creature will be a weapon –_ my _weapon,” his father boasted, and Satoshi’s frown deepened as something else his father said caught his attention._

_“Mother of the ocean . . . But hahahue is a water youkai, her family comes from the rivers not the ocean. That’s what she always . . . The old wooden hut down by the shore,” he whispered in horror as his mind slowed to a crawl, the disbelief he felt swelling as it twisted with rage to create a storm of emotion he could only barely control. “The marine and earth youkai wrapped in chains . . .”_

_“I am powerful,” his father declared, stomping his foot on the ground as he lifted his hand, great clumps of earth flying into the air, shaking the very ground they stood on, and Satoshi narrowed his eyes when he saw the girl’s mouth open wide in a terrified cry, though no sound came from her throat. “Oh, don’t waste your concern on her,” his father scoffed a moment later as the shaking earth stilled. “She has been made silent,” he said, and Satoshi frowned as he shook his head in confusion. “There is a traveling priestess, a medical woman, who has been paid quite highly to silence the humans’ children, but unlike humans, a youkai will heal the wound, and once every decade it must be repeated. She isn’t due for another two years, at least.”_

_“What . . . procedure?” Satoshi asked as he felt his stomach turn._

_“A simple quick cut,” Daichi said as he brought his finger up to indicate the spot on his own throat. “It severs the chords, makes it impossible for her to speak. She can draw in as much air as she wants to,” he said as he stepped up behind the youkai, and pulled her hair back roughly, fisting his hand around the thick locks that were so white they looked blue, and dragged her to her feet, only to throw her to the tatami mats. “Do anything you like with her, she’ll never make a noise.”_

_It took strength Satoshi didn’t know he had to school his features, to remain outwardly unaffected, when he felt so completely horrified that he was sick because of it. “Her parents let you do this?” he asked as he stared at the girl, watching as she slowly stood before kneeling down to retake the seiza._

_“Her creation was paid for!” Daichi snapped._

_“Paid – what the hell does that even mean?” Satoshi demanded, his emotions getting the better of him before he was able to rein them in once more._

_“Her parents were indebted to me, and I demanded repayment in the form of her,” Daichi said haughtily. “Of course, they let me do as I wished with her. You think they would refuse me? Dishonor me? I am a god to them,” he declared, and Satoshi shook his head. “You do not agree?” he scoffed._

_“Why?” Satoshi asked, the horror he felt making the single word difficult to speak._

_“And the mother, born of the sea, will come from a place where only the strongest survive,” his father said, quoting a passage. “Even the iruka do not go to such depths, as the waters are too cold for them, but,” Daichi said as he held up one finger in triumph, “nature can be made to bow,” he announced pridefully. “And I made nature bow down on her knees before me – twice. First with her –“ he said as he pointed to the female. “Her mother was an ice youkai, and her father was water youkai – both from the purest of bloodlines. I commanded them to breed, and even breed their offspring, until the perfect youkai – a perfect fusion of water and ice – had been bred.”_

_“Breed their offspring,” Satoshi repeated slowly, dumbly as he refused to believe what his father was telling him. “You mean to say . . .?”_

_“She is born of her father,” Daichi said primly._

_“And her mother?” Satoshi asked, unable to stop himself._

_“It was their third daughter who held the strongest power,” he said simply, and Satoshi feared he would be sick. “Concern yourself not with this. It is unimportant.”_

_“And her family?” Satoshi asked, trying desperately not to attack his father, or worse, loose the dinner he had eaten only hours before. “All those she left behind?”_

_“Gone,” Daichi dismissed. “Once she was born and her power tested true, they were unneeded. My men, of course, took their pleasures before destroying the lot of them. I had her silenced first when she was an infant, the cries that came out of her were simply annoying, but don’t worry, she was allowed a respite for her eleventh year, and I made certain she could converse quite well before having her silenced again. It is quite simple to do with the cut of a single claw.”_

_Satoshi swallowed the bile rising in the back of his throat with difficulty before turning his eyes on the girl. “The cliffs overhanging the sea guarded by the ancient peach tree, do you know where they are?” he asked, and the girl nodded. “Wait for me there, I will come for you,” he told her, his voice giving nothing away._

_He turned his back to her, putting himself between his father and the girl as he allowed her to escape, and seconds after he watched her disappear into the woods, his head snapped to the side. A trickle of blood fell from the corner of his mouth where his father had lashed out, striking him with the back of his hand._

_“You would dare defy_ me _?” Daichi snarled as he raised his hand to strike his son again, and Satoshi caught him by the wrist, the true hatred he felt for his father shining in his eyes._

_“You would dishonor me?” he asked in return, as he held his father’s wrist in an iron grip. “Dishonor that girl as you have so many others?”_

_“She is nothing but a womb! She means nothing beyond the child she can bear you,” he snapped. “She was bred the same as you!” he exclaimed, and Satoshi stilled as he felt the blood freeze in his veins._

_“ . . . What?” Satoshi growled through clenched teeth. “You did these things to mother?” he asked, feeling unsteady under the wave of vertigo his father’s revelations had inspired._

_Daichi scoffed. “That woman is a pathetic excuse for a water youkai, but our mating was arranged, just as yours has been. My father and hers were business partners, combining forces. And I killed them both when I discovered how weak her power was,”_ _he boasted, and Satoshi stilled as he was reminded of what he had almost forgotten._

 _“The shack, the dead youkai rotting and secured in chains, the . . . How many, chichihue?” he asked, his eyes cold as he schooled his features into an unreadable mask. “How many siblings came before me? How many were born, only to be sacrificed –_ slaughtered _– by you, until I was born?” he demanded, and in his rage, he squeezed his hand around his father’s wrist until he heard the bone snap. “_ How _._ Many _.”_

_“Twenty-five,” Daichi answered dismissively, and it was only through his father’s strict and often painful lessons that Satoshi managed to appear unaffected._

_“You fathered them all? Killed them all?” he asked, clenching his jaw as his eyes began to take on a deadly light. “Do not think me a fool,” he snapped when Daichi scoffed. “I saw the youkai in that hut – male and female – water, ice, ashika, iruka, and kurage – the rarest of the marine youkai. If the mythical Kujira you’ve always romanticized about actually existed, no doubt you’d have one of them, too. Your scent may have been masked by the wind, by their blood that soaked the floor, but I could still smell you in there.” He stilled as his father yanked his injured wrist free of Satoshi’s hold. “You – you raped them. You made them rape each other,” he said as the bile returned, and he swallowed it back as he shook his head in disbelief._

_“Do not be a simpering fool. No one was raped,” his father scoffed mockingly as he yanked his wrist free from Satoshi’s hold. “They were bred.”_

_“Bred?” Satoshi repeated. “Bred?” he repeated incredulously as the anger he had held at bay finally overflowed. “They are not animals! You are mated to mother!”_

_“And she was not strong enough!” Daichi snarled. “She was weak and pathetic, and the only reason I agreed to the mating was because I wanted her family’s wealth – their lands. But she would never have been strong enough to bring about the prophecy. Oh, but you Satoshi,” he said as he lifted his hand to touch his son’s cheek. “You are my prize. That iruka, she gave birth to a daughter, powerful – formidable, but she was only a third as powerful as you are. And then that ashika, she gave birth to a son. I bred them both, those offspring were mine. And I tested them both over many years,” he said, and Satoshi felt the air catch in his throat, choking him, as he prayed to Kami that his father wasn’t about to say what he thought he was. “They were both formidable in mind and spirit, they both could command earth and water separately, but neither power was very strong. Their power never became much more than that of a child’s. But then it happened,” Daichi exclaimed, his eyes wide as he laughed, the sound manic. “The night the stars fell from the sky, I commanded them to mate, commanded him to breed her, and he did so as I watched. And nine months later, under the cover a moon eclipsed, you were born.”_

‘Don’t think about it, Satoshi,’ _his youkai warned him._

‘My . . . parents,’ _he thought with difficulty, his mind slowing to a crawl._ ‘My parents were siblings? He is my . . . grandfather – their father?’

_Satoshi stood silent as he stared at the youkai in front of him without truly seeing him. Who was this person? Has he always been this – this monster?_

_“You had a sister, did you know?” Daichi asked as he smiled slowly, the expression wistful, if not a bit nostalgic, as though he were thinking back on some pleasant memory. “It was the Iruka who bore the child,” he told Satoshi. “She had her mother’s pale blue hair, one grey eye – like her mother, and one eye the color of meadowsweet. Yes, yes,” he murmured, sounding proud, even happy. “My eyes. Dark green with flecks of white. Oh, how her mother cursed me the night I bred her. She thought she could command her own body not to accept my seed, but my will is stronger, and it was easy to impregnate her. I had to keep her in chains just so that she wouldn’t rip the child from her womb with her own claws. She had fire, that one. Kojunin was powerful,” he said as he took in a deep breath, a self-satisfied smile bending his lips up at the side._

_“Kojunin?” Satoshi repeated with a shake of his head. “Tenth child? That’s not a name, not a proper one anyway.”_

_Daichi rolled his eyes as he scoffed. “There is no reason to name something bound for slaughter,” he said reasonably. “Kojunin was five years old when I last saw her,” he reminisced, smiling at the memory. “Her fifth summer had come to pass, and when I tested her, she raised the earth to create a doll. Can you imagine that?” he asked Satoshi, his brows high on his forehead as he laughed, as he sneered. “It barely lasted a few seconds, just long enough for her to hold it up before it crumbled into dust. The foolish child even grew for me a flower, that, too, wilted and returned to dust within the span of a few heartbeats. She even thanked me for the kimono she wore. I remember her smile . . . And I remember the look in her eyes when I cut her face with my claw, when I drew her name upon her neck and watched her blood seep from the cut. The sound of her gasping cries when I pushed her to the ground and kneeled beside her, my knee across her neck, the last sounds she ever heard were that of my laughter and her mother’s screams.” He sighed with delight. “That was one of my most favorite days. Just thinking about it brings me such . . . peace,” he said, and Satoshi’s eyes widened as the air escaped his lungs in one harsh exhalation, as though he had been struck._

_It took more willpower than he thought he had to appear as unaffected as he did. The one standing before him was not his father. His parents had been half siblings, children forcefully bred to unwilling mothers. The more he thought about it, the sicker he felt, until the world around him spun uncontrollably, the horror he felt swirling into a blinding storm of something dark and unnatural, a hate so deep, so profound that he was powerless against it._

_“You  . . . “ Satoshi shook his head. “Where are my birth parents?” he asked, fearing he already knew the answer._

_“Of all those born, you were the strongest. You tested true, and they were unneeded. The only disappointment I’ve found in you, your_ defect _– if you will – is that you cannot command water on its own as you can the earth. You may be able to command them together, grow the earth and have it thrive, but there has never been anything quite as useless as that,” he answered simply. “But, I allowed you to live with your defect because of your strength, because there is hope. . . Hope that your child will succeed where you have failed. And when you breed that wretch, you will give me your first born._

_“I will give you nothing,” Satoshi said, the rage he felt matched only by the violent nausea twisting his stomach._

_The earth responded to his emotions as it always had, his desire to never look upon his father again resulting in spiraling thorned roots that rose up around Daichi in seconds, closing him inside with the thorns pointed in, the outside left smooth, as the roots climbed higher, wrapping around each other to create a barren tree. Rivulets of crimson seeped out in a few places, the enraged screams of the one trapped inside muffled to whispers. This was the only time his father had been able to make him use his power to destroy, to willfully bring harm to another, Satoshi thought with a disgusted grimace. He knew his father would eventually escape his prison, suffering for the effort. He knew it was impossible to trap an earth youkai in a prison made of earth, but it would give him the time he needed to get away – to run – before he did something that would forever mark his soul, like kill the man entombed in the tree before him, or worse – become him._

Satoshi shook his head as the memory faded and closed his eyes against the nausea twisting his stomach. It wouldn’t matter how long it had been since that night, the knowledge of it all would forever hold the power to upset him as it did the first time. He owed it to the ones who’d suffered so he could be born, he thought as he took in a deep breath and brought his pen to the top of the page. He may not know the identity of his birth parents, but what he did know was that they deserved to be remembered.

_‘Many centuries ago, long before I was born, in the lands now known as Kanazawa, Tojinbo, Fukui, and Oshima Island, a devil swept across the earth, shaking the ground, creating deep fissures and leaving so many dead, in order to claim it all as his own. By claw and by fang, he took the lives of men – old and young alike – of women, and children, until the only humans and youkai left alive, knew nothing, but the tyranny of his command. This man – youkai – was called so many things by so many people – human and youkai alike. While he never said it implicitly, I do believe his ultimate goal was to overthrow the Inu no Taisho of the time – the Great Sesshoumaru’s father – and I was to be his weapon. What he never counted on, was for me to say no.’_

He paused as he looked down at the page, closing his eyes as he fought against the desire to tear the page from the book, to erase the horrors his father had told him about like so many bedtime stories. The man had rejoiced in the suffering he’d caused, taken pleasure from the pain and grief of others. But as much as he wished he could deny the truth of what was done, he knew that those unknown faces, those countless dead, they deserved to be heard, as well. His very existence had been soaked in great rivers of blood, long before he’d ever been born.

 _‘I do not know the names of those who gave me life, but I know the name of the one who forced me into existence,’_ he wrote, and clenched the pen in his fist when his hand started to shake. _‘Below, and on the pages to follow, is the truth as I know it. It is dark, and it is foul, but a truth that has caused this much pain and suffering to so many, deserves to be known. May the Kami forgive me for the sins of the one who called himself my father.’_

 

 

**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~**

**Glossary**

Susanoo-no-Mikoto = ancient Japanese Shinto Kami of the sea and storms

Ashika = sea lion

Kurage = jellyfish

Iruka = dolphin

Kujira = whale

Shachi = killer whale

Shironagasukujira = blue whale. The largest of all whales

Zatōkujira = humpback whale

Sezia = traditional formal way of sitting in Japanese culture with the legs folded beneath you, feet turned in, and hands resting palms-down on the thighs

Aisuru = beloved

Chichiue = father – formal, archaic.

Hahahue = mother – formal, archaic

Kamakura period = 1185 – 1333 in Japan.

** From research done and questions made of Sue herself, in the current timeline of Purity (2070 – 2080), Sesshoumaru is roughly 760 years old [give or take a decade], which – by way of simple mathematics – puts his birth year somewhere between 1220 – 1250. In this instance, I split the difference and selected 1238, as his birth year. **


	2. The Dark Side of Hope

**The Child of Earth and Sea**

_A Purity Collaboration  
_

_By_ _WhisperingWolf_

 

Chapter 1

**_“The Dark Side of Hope”_ **

 

 

 

**_20 December 2055_ **

**_Missoula, Montana_ **

It was the quiet whisper, the delicate sound of soft pats as new powder fell that called to her, rousing her from sleep as it bid her to join in on the celebration. The low steady thrum of her mate’s youki comforted her as he slept beside her, the peacefulness that she felt through their bond at odds with the excitement spiraling through her. Her eyes opened in the darkness, a smile curling her lips up at the corners as she breathed in deeply of the crisp air, the scent arousing her senses as a flush rose to color her cheeks. Amaya’s pale blue eyes sparkled as she sat up, her bottom lip caught between her teeth as she slipped from the bed, her bare feet whispering against the cool wood floor as she moved to stand in front of the window.

Her arctic eyes widened as she watched the fat tufts of white fall from the sky to blanket the earth, and giggled quietly as she studied the six-inch collection of snow already covering the ground, decorating the trees and shrubs as it glittered beneath the silver light of the moon. It wouldn’t matter how many centuries she lived, how many winters she made it through, she would always love the snow. Especially this one – the first snowfall of the season. There was a peacefulness it brought to the earth, a promise of hope, of rebirth, a magical sense that everything – no matter how bad it was – would be all right.

She lifted her hands from the window sill, pressed her palms together in front of her face and bowed her head, resting her lips against the tips of fingers as she closed her eyes and made a wish. Perhaps it was a foolish endeavor, she thought as she opened her eyes and lifted her head. The belief that making a wish on the first snowfall of the season would bring about what she wanted. Maybe it was a bit childish, too, but it had never failed her.

Amaya could feel the soothing thrum of her mate’s youki as it wrapped around her silently, cloaking her as it pressed in closer on all side in a touchless hug. She smiled softly as she lifted her own youki to return his embrace, turning her eyes to look back at the bed, only to giggle softly when she found him to still be sleeping. His youki slipped away to fall back into the braided energy between them, rising and falling gently with each beat of his heart, as timeless as the oceans she had once called home. She may never be able to read his thoughts, nor share her memories and experiences with him as she had been able to do with her family in the ocean she’d left behind, but this silent communication, the constant connection they held with their youki braided together, was enough. Her lips parted in a silent gasp, her mouth curling up in a smile as she felt the vibration of her daughter’s youki, the quiet trill of the child’s youki growing stronger, faster, as it tugged at her own.

_‘As if you didn’t already expect to find her awake,’_ her youkai-voice teased. _‘Vanessa has always been awake long before you or Satoshi on this day. Five years, Amaya. Five beautiful wonderful years.’_

_‘And so many more yet to go,’_ she replied, her bottom lip caught between her teeth as she smiled.

Stepping over to the bed, she bent down low over her mate, her midnight hair falling down in a curtain around his head as she kissed his cheek while he slept. The heavy strands of her hair parted further, revealing the onyx mark at the base of her skull, accented in crimson, in the shape of a dorsal fin. She smiled as she straightened, watching her mate sleep for a moment longer before she turned and left the room. Amaya glanced up at the mantle on the wall above the fireplace when the wooden clock her husband had built by hand chimed twice, marking the morning hour.

Her smile widened as she stepped into her daughter’s room, leaving the door open as she leaned against the frame, watching Vanessa as she stared out the window. Her gaze softened, her eyes falling closed as she felt the whispered brush of her daughter’s youki against her own, the energy wrapping around her, tugging gently, in a silent request for her to come closer. She responded in kind, unfurling her youki from the steady braided thrum that always remained between the three of them as she reached out to her daughter, brushing her youki against her child’s, twining and twisting the energy around her, pressing it in closer around her daughter before loosening it, and pulling it back until it was just resting against Vanessa’s.

The manner in which she and her family were able to communicate with their youki was a bare shadow of the true telepathic and empathic bonds she had shared with her pod – with other Kujira – in her youth when she’d lived in the ocean. And though there were times when she missed that connection so much that it moved her to tears, she would never give up what she had now just to have that connection back. She chuckled when she felt the tug of her daughter’s youki again, smiled when she felt Vanessa wrap her youki around her, pressing it in closer around her as Amaya herself had done only moments before, the silent hug soothing her even as her daughter’s youki fairly danced with glee.

“It’s snowing!” Vanessa called out to her in a secretive whisper, as though the weather pattern had been created for them alone.

“I know,” Amaya said, sharing in her daughter’s excitement as she stepped up behind Vanessa, and knelt down as she wrapped her arms around her.

Amaya breathed in deeply, her lips turning up in a slow peaceful smile as she felt her daughter’s youki rise with the effervescence of youth, twining around hers as it rose and fell ever faster in a spiraling pattern as though it were dancing. She tipped her head down to kiss Vanessa’s hair as she wondered – not for the first time – if her daughter was even aware that the silent communication shared in their family was not something that was considered normal for any other youkai.

She could still remember her mate’s confusion and equal fascination when she had first tried to communicate with him telepathically, in the way of Kujira, only to realize that while she couldn’t read his mind, she could use her youki to speak with him in a different manner. It had taken Satoshi time to learn and adjust to speaking through his youki, but the silent communication was second nature to him now. But Vanessa? Vanessa had learned to speak with her youki when she was still in the womb, and there were times when Amaya wondered if her daughter even realized that she was doing so.

Amaya blinked slowly as she shook her head, dispelling her worry as she focused instead on the girl standing in the circle of her arms. “It’s two AM,” she told Vanessa, smiling with the joy her daughter’s easy laughter inspired.

“I’m officially five years old!” Vanessa told her, and Amaya chuckled as she kissed her daughter’s cheek. “Did you make your wish, Mama?” she asked, turning wide meadow grass eyes on her, and Amaya nodded quietly, her excitement sparkling in her eyes.

“Mhm,” she affirmed, watching the waves of her daughter’s feather-soft dark cherry wood hair dance in the air as she quickly turned back to the window, her reflection in the glass full of wonder as she stared out at the snow. “Did you, my sweet girl?”

“Yes!” Vanessa cheered, bouncing on the balls of her feet, and Amaya leaned back just far enough to avoid being knocked in the chin by her daughter’s head. “Can we go outside, Mama?” she asked, her gaze fixed on the world of white outside the window, the fat flakes calling to them both. “We can collect the snow just like last year.”

“You want to make snow caramels?” Amaya asked her with amusement, and laughed when the girl nodded excitedly. “Go get your bucket,” she instructed as she let her arms fall slowly from around her daughter, releasing her from the hug, and watched as she darted out of the room.

Amaya stood slowly, watching the snow fall, the sound of it whispering in the quiet around her, before she turned away from the window. Stepping into the living room, she gathered the quilt she’d made a few years ago, holding the heavy blanket in her arms as she carried it into the kitchen. It was big enough to wrap around both herself and Satoshi, large enough still for Vanessa to be wrapped inside of it with them, and she smiled as she set it aside on the kitchen table. She moved to the stove, taking the glass tea kettle from the silent burner, and filled it with water from the sink before setting it back on the rear burner and turning the gas flame on low.

“Mama!” Vanessa cried out happily as she dashed into the kitchen, the wooden bucket rocking back and forth from the rope handle it was held by.

Amaya smiled as she nodded, retrieving the quilt from the table as she followed her daughter to the back door and out into the forest surrounding their home. She shook out the quilt as she watched Vanessa set the bucket down in the gathering snow, letting it collect the fresh frozen powder as she played in the white fluff around it. She rolled her eyes, shaking her head as she noted that Vanessa had failed to grab her mittens or rabbit fur shoes, watching for a moment longer as the snow fell to crown her daughter’s head. Turning away just long enough to dust the snow off the wide wooden deck Satoshi had made for her when they’d first settled here, Amaya turned back just in time to watch as her daughter fell down in the snow, catching herself on her hands.

“Cold!” Vanessa hissed as she ran back to her mother, and Amaya laughed as she wrapped the quilt around herself before sitting down and opening the blanket in invitation. “Brrrr, Mama!” her daughter said as she climbed up into her lap and snuggled against her.

“Better?” Amaya asked as she wrapped her arms around her daughter, the quilt fisted in her hands and wrapped around them both.

“Yes!” she cheered quietly, and curled closer to her mother, tucking her head under her chin.

Amaya chuckled softly as she arched her brow. “Perhaps next time you’ll remember to put on the rabbit skin shoes your father made you,” she chided softly, tipping her head down to stare at her daughter. “And the gloves I knitted for you.”

Vanessa scrunched her nose up in response, giggling as she burrowed closer to her mother. “Story?” she asked, and Amaya smiled.

Amaya hummed as she considered the request, welcoming the return of the low hum of her mate’s aura as the door that had separated them was opened, and chuckled softly when she heard the breath of amusement Satoshi released behind her. She breathed in deeply as she felt her mate’s youki reach out to her, wrap around her and their daughter in a twin embrace, holding them both to him, before he’d even taken his first step outside. She reached out to him in turn, braiding her youki around his, pulling him closer, and laughed silently when Vanessa’s youki wrapped around them both, twirling around and in between them with excitement, and smiled at the tugging feeling as Vanessa called them both to her. A moment later, Satoshi lowered himself down to sit behind her, pulling Amaya back to rest against his chest as he wrapped his arms around the blanketed bundle she and their daughter made.

“Have I missed story time?” he asked, his deep voice reverberating through her back, and Amaya smiled as she turned her head up to meet his gaze.

He hadn’t taken the time to tie back his hair, the loose waves of his mahogany hair flowing freely around his shoulders. She smiled as she lifted her hand to catch a lock of his hair in her hand, smiling when the moonlight reflecting off the snow brought out the deep sorrel and burnt honey highlights in the strands. She loved it when he left his hair free, the feel of the silken strands falling through her fingers bringing her a sense of peace that she lacked the words to convey. She bit her lip as she looked up to meet his gaze, the feel of his youki deepening as his scent grew heady with arousal.

Her pale blue eyes darkened when he lifted his hand to cup her cheek, his thumb smoothing over her delicate skin as he held her gaze. Her eyes fluttered closed when he lowered his head, his full lips falling to cover hers in a slow caress, a gentle kiss that inspired a fire deep inside her. He swallowed her gasp as she shivered, the heat his kiss inspired cascading through her limbs in a dizzying array as she lifted her hand to comb her fingers into his hair, rubbing small circles at the base of his skull as she pulled him closer. She whimpered as she pressed back against him, leaning into the kiss as she nipped at the fullness of his bottom lip. His arms tightened around her as he groaned and deepened the kiss, his tongue slipping in to play with hers, fanning the fire within her into a raging storm of heat and light.

“ _Pa-a-a-a-a-pa_ ,” Vanessa called out, her voice breaking them apart as they gasped for air, and Amaya chuckled when her mate sighed.

“Yes, my darling?” Satoshi asked as he reached out to tuck Vanessa’s hair behind her ear.

“You were kissing Mama,” she admonished him, and her parents laughed at the censure in the child’s tone.

“I happen to like kissing your mother,” Satoshi replied, laughing when Vanessa crossed her arms over her chest, and offered a heavy sigh of complaint.

“But if you kiss Mama, then Mama can’t tell stories,” the girl scolded him, the expression on her face clearly stating her belief that the kisses Satoshi had bestowed upon her mother were an intentional interruption to the story she’d asked for.

“Oh,” Satoshi said as he nodded, and Amaya bit her lip as she chuckled, not needing to look to know that her mate was barely keeping his laughter at bay.

“She has a point,” Amaya said reasonably, and giggled at the look her mate gave her.

“I apologize, princess,” he said cordially.

“Harrumph,” Vanessa replied with an angry pout, and Amaya coughed to cover her laugh.

“Someday, you’ll find your own mate, and you’ll like kissing him, too,” Amaya told her daughter with a smile, hugging the girl close even as she frowned prettily at the caution she could feel coming through the bond she shared with her mate.

It was like the difference between the snow falling around them and the tiniest pebbles of ice that formed when the frozen rains fell. She always knew which sensations and emotions were coming through the bond she shared with Satoshi as true mates did, and which came through their braided youki. She should be grateful for what she had, she told herself, trying to push away the longing and remorse before it carried through the bond she shared with her mate. He had taken the effort to learn this language, to speak with her through their braided youki, but . . .

_‘But it’s clumsy, and a paltry excuse for what you once had, and no matter how hard you try to make yourself forget,’_ her youkai-voice spoke wisely, _‘you’ll always remember – and always long for – that seamless – effortless – connection of mind, heart, and soul that you shared with your pod and other Kujira. Even other marine youkai.’_

_‘I should be grateful,’_ she said, unwilling or unable to acknowledge the truths her youkai had spoken so plainly.

_‘Amaya, it’s all right to miss something. It’s even all right to mourn the loss of it, and that’s one thing you’ve never done. Aside from writing it all down in that huge book of yours, you’ve just tucked the memories of the life and family you left behind in the ocean into the back of your mind and tried to forget them like it was something to be ashamed of, and it’s not.’_

_‘I’m not ashamed of it, I just . . . ‘_

_‘You miss it – that connection, that depth of being one with everyone around you. I miss it, too, you know. You’re not the only one who was connected. The youkai voices were all connected as one as well, we were just on a different wavelength is all. We were able to talk to each other without any of you being consciously aware of it. Why else do you think using your powers together as one in the pod was so effortless?’_ The voice inside her sighed, the sound of it caught somewhere between amusement and sorrow. _‘I know you’re worried that Tosh will think you regret your choice to be with him if he were to know how much you long for that connection you once had, but he won’t. He knows how much you love him and Vanessa. Our pod is smaller now, and our connection to each other is different, but it is ours – uniquely and completely_ ours. _’_

_‘Ours,’_ Amaya repeated with wonder and love, as she offered a tremulous smile, her eyes downcast. _‘I just wish I could share stories with Vanessa as my mother and sisters and aunts, did with me.’_

_‘I know,’_ her youkai soothed her. _‘Kujira didn’t tell stories, they shared them. You never heard a story, you lived it, you experienced it, taking it into yourself as though you’d always been apart of it. But that child in your arms, she’s happy enough simply to hear your words. Never forget that.’_

“Ma-ma,” Vanessa called to her, and she chuckled at the sound of her daughter’s plaintive tone.

“All right, all right,” she agreed when her daughter turned a petulant stare on her. “A story,” she said, and Vanessa nodded curtly. “Hmm.”

Amaya took in a deep breath as she wrapped her arms a little tighter around Vanessa, and leaned her head back against her mate’s shoulder, taking comfort in the way he held them both wrapped in the twin embrace of his arms and youki. Turning her gaze out to the snow falling around them, she smiled at the white tufts that landed on the quilt, and fell to decorate her daughter’s dark cherry wood hair. There had been another night like this, so long ago now, and she smiled as the images came to life in her mind. She felt the gentle pressure as Satoshi kissed her hair, and smiled as she gave voice to the memories, bringing them to life in a story for her daughter.

“There’s a story I’ve always wanted to tell you,” she began, her voice soft and whimsical, “about a great forest prince, and his mate, a princess of the sea. But, this story isn’t as much about them, as it is about the light they carried between them, a most precious gift sent to them by the gods.”

“A gift?” Vanessa asked, and Amaya released a soft amused breath as she nodded.

“Many centuries ago, on a night when the moon shone full and bright, and the land was covered to the edges of the sea in the most beautiful perfect sakura and plum blossoms that had fallen from the trees, the princess of the sea rose from the water, leaving her home behind to join her mate – “

“The great forest prince!” Vanessa interjected happily, tipping her head back to turn her wide-eyed smile on her mother.

“Yes,” Amaya laughed, kissing her daughter’s hair as she lifted one hand to brush the still-falling snow from the child’s head. “For many centuries, the prince and his princess prayed to the gods to give them a child, someone they could share their love with, for there was too much for them to keep to themselves. But with each year that passed, their hearts grew sad, and they feared their prayers would never be answered.”

Amaya smiled softly when she felt her mate kiss her hair, and tipped her head back to meet his gaze when she heard him draw in a deep breath.

“The great prince,” Satoshi said, continuing the story as he met Amaya’s gaze with a smile, “had lost hope, believing that a child was never meant to be, that perhaps they had been cursed. And then one night, when the moon was hidden, and the stars were silent, his mate – the princess of the sea – told him that all was not lost. For she had had a dream, a message sent to her by the gods, of a child that would be theirs.”

Vanessa gasped, her lips forming a perfect ‘o’ as she looked back at her parents. “She did?” she asked with wide eyes.

“She did,” Amaya affirmed. “Five years ago, on a night just like this, in the wilderness of the great Green Mountain, something magical happened. The ground was covered in snow, so soft and so bright that it sparkled like diamonds. But the moon, oh the moon was beautiful, shining like a ruby in the velvet sky.”

“A ruby?” Vanessa asked with confusion.

“The moon was eclipsed, my angel,” Satoshi answered, his arms tightening around them both. “When the moon is full and drenched in crimson, they call it a ‘blood moon’. It is said that the greatest of sorrows and the most wonderous of joys happen beneath a blood moon. It is a time of magic, of hope, of power.”

“The earth was still and quiet,” Amaya said, breathing in deeply as her eyes fell closed. “And for once, the dark spirits chasing the princess, seeking to pull her back to the sea, had vanished, leaving the prince and princess in peace. It was a good thing, too. You see, the princess was heavy with child, her belly swollen. She couldn’t move very easily, and the prince . . . The prince searched high and low, finding for her a castle hidden in the woods.”

“The princess was almost asleep when the prince carried her into the castle, laying her down in front of the stone hearth before gathering enough dry logs to start a fire,” Satoshi picked up the story, kissing his mate’s hair when she hummed her contentment. “On that night, as the moon rose high, the princess felt the world around her tremble, the trees surrounding them bowing in honor as her child was born.”

“The trees bowed?” Vanessa whispered, her face bright with wonder.

“Even the animals bowed,” he told her, and Amaya smiled as she snuggled closer to her mate, hugging her daughter in her arms. “The infant’s cries rang into the night around them, loud and powerful, as she announced her arrival to the world. The snow fell faster, hiding them as it kept them safe from the shadows, the castle protected by the spirits of the woods around them.”

Amaya released a soft rolling breath as she smiled, remembering the castle for what it was – an abandoned stone cottage that had fallen to ruin over the years. Slats in the roof had been missing, one wall completely collapsed in when the mortar that held the stones in place had given way. The fireplace remained intact, the other three walls standing stalwart in the darkness. Satoshi had pushed his power into the conifer closest to the fallen wall of the cottage, growing the tree thicker and fuller, bending the lower branches over the exposed part of the house in order to provide protection from the wind and cold.

She’d been in labor for almost two days when they’d finally found the safe haven. She hadn’t told Satoshi, but of course, he had known, carrying her more often than not on their journey. The tears she and Satoshi had cried when they’d heard Vanessa draw in a deep full breath before releasing a piercing cry into the night . . .

Amaya took in a shaking breath as tears stung behind her eyes, blurring her gaze, as the faces of each tiny baby she had born and lost filtered through her mind. Her lashes fluttered as she blinked quickly, a bittersweet pain piercing her heart as she heard the ghostly echoes of their rattling coughs and gasping cries as they fought for each breath they took. She would never forget any of them, she thought, but in some ways, the pain of their losses had been dulled by the absolute joy of her daughter’s survival.

Vanessa was the only one of her children who hadn’t fought to breathe, the only one to be born of the earth like her father, instead of shachi. The only one who had come to her in a dream before she had even been conceived . . . the only one to grow stronger, healthier, more vibrant with each passing day, and she knew that there would never be a moment when she wouldn’t feel the same sense of wonder and love that she felt now as she stared at the girl in her arms.

“Was I that baby?” Vanessa asked, pulling Amaya from her thoughts, and Satoshi chuckled as he tweaked their daughter’s nose.

“You were indeed,” he confirmed.

Vanessa giggled as she hid her face in the folds of the blanket, rubbing her nose before peering back up at her mother. “Story, Mama!”

Amaya laughed softly. “On the eleventh day, when the princess of the sea was strong again, she took that tiny baby outside to sit with her in the snow, to watch as the moon shone over the land. Every night at this hour, you and I would wake together, as though we were searching for each other, making sure the other was still there. And every year since,” she said, bringing the story to an end as she looked down at her daughter in her arms, “on the night and hour of your birth, I bring you outside, to sit beneath the moon and give thanks for all that we have.”

“So many times, I’ve found your mother asleep with you in her arms,” Satoshi said as he reached out to brush the fallen snow off of Vanessa’s hair. “We waited so long for you, daughter of mine,” he told the girl. “That is why this hour, on this day, will always be special to us,” he reminded the girl.

Vanessa gave a soft humming sigh as she leaned against Amaya’s chest, curling closer to tuck her head under her mother’s chin as she closed her eyes. The peacefulness of the child’s youki was soothing, inviting, and Amaya smiled as she bent her head to kiss her daughter’s hair, closing her eyes as she held Vanessa closer and leaned back against her mate. Satoshi chuckled softly as he tightened his arms around them both, the gentle pressure of his kiss against her temple drawing a lazy smile from Amaya as she watched through the fringe of her lashes as he reached out to stroke Vanessa’s hair, bits of snow sticking to his hand.

It was moments like these that she treasured the most, and would give anything to have. These quiet moments when all the world seemed to be at peace, when even time itself bowed down and grew still, and the only thing she knew was the absolute love of being surrounded by her family. She felt her youki swell, pulsing once, twice, three times as her eyes burned, tears gathering to blur her gaze, as one slipped down her cheek. Vanessa gave her hope, and in that moment, the one thing she wanted most was to hold another baby in her arms, to bring another life into this world to share all the love she felt with them. How much richer would her daughter’s life be if she had a sibling to share it with?

“You are both my miracles,” Satoshi told them, his voice low and quiet, as he held them. “Why do you look so sad, my angel?” he asked a moment later, and Amaya opened her eyes, tipped her head down to peer into her daughter’s crestfallen expression.

“I can’t feel the earth, Papa,” Vanessa told him, sniffling as she reached out a hand to touch the snow. “It’s all gone.”

“It’s not gone,” he denied her, soothing her as he petted her hair, brushing bits of snow off the gentle waves of her cherry wood locks. “It’s just frozen right now. In time, as you grow older, you’ll be able to command the earth when it’s cold, when it’s frozen. It isn’t easy, and sometimes it hurts, but you’ll learn with time as your power grows. You could do it now with enough focus as long as you were touching a living thing, like a tree or a bush,” he reminded her, a frown marring his brow as he stared at her with concern, “but you won’t, will you?” Amaya could feel the way his youki shifted focus from the bond the three of them shared to wrap solely around Vanessa, holding her in a cocoon of warmth for a few moments before returning his youki to the braided bond they all shared. “Tonight, I’ll teach you something new, something small that you can do inside. Maybe that will help you release your fear,” he told her, and Vanessa pouted in confusion as she looked up at him.

“Inside?” she asked as she tilted her head to the side. “Like when I made my bed grow?” she asked, and Amaya laughed.

“No, not like when you made your bed grow,” Satoshi told her with a chuckle. “Though you do seem happier now that you’re sleeping in that cradle of vines and flowers,” he teased her.

“It feels like when I sleep with you and Mama,” Vanessa said innocently, her lips twitching up to one side. “It feels like you’re there with me.”

“Well, then I’m glad,” he told her in return. “Your bucket’s almost full,” he said as he nodded to the small wooden bucket piled to the rim with snow.

Vanessa gasped as she bounced on her mother’s lap, struggling for her freedom, before she slipped down to sit in the cold white powder. She giggled from the confines of the blanket before crawling out from beneath the copious folds to gather her bucket. Amaya laughed at the snow that covered her daughter from head to foot, the fluffs of white clinging to her hair and clothing, a few soft crystalline flakes hanging off the ends of her lashes.

“I remember when you were so tiny you could have fit in that bucket,” Amaya told the girl as she watched Vanessa gather up more snow to pile on top of her collection. “Your father made your first bed, a little nest that he grew from a tree stump.”

“You did?” Vanessa asked her father with wide eyes.

“I did,” he confirmed, a smile in his voice as he nodded. “Twisted roots and branches of meadowsweet and mistletoe and vines of star jasmine and Carolina Jessamine all wrapped together to create a bowl – a cradle,” he told her. “Ferns and clover in the bottom to cushion you beneath the blankets your mother made. It’s probably why you love jasmine the way you do, it cradled you only hours after you were born. The way you made your bed grow,” he told her as he stood and helped Amaya to her feet, the moonlight shining down upon them, casting their daughter in a watery silver glow, “looks just like the nest you slept in as a newborn. The one you have now is just bigger and full of wisteria and jasmine,” he allowed, a frown marring his brow as his smile fell away slowly, his attention turned out to the forest in front of them.

Amaya looked up when she felt her mate still, the feel of his youki grating against hers in warning, and she fell silent as she turned to stare up at him with wide eyes. The feel of his youki cracked like dry lightning across the summer skies, and she flinched as she looked out toward the forest following the direction he was focused. It took effort to cover her fear, to smile as she shooed their daughter in the house and tried to pretend that nothing was wrong. She would give anything for Vanessa to never know this fear, to never understand what their adventures really were, and shook her head as she looked back up at her mate.

“Tosh?” Amaya asked as she glanced back through the open doorway at their daughter before looking back at him.

“Don’t,” he snapped, cautioning her when she began to change the focus of her youki, unfurling it slowly in layers from around her mate and child to stretch toward the forest in front of them. “Don’t,” he repeated softer this time, his brow furrowed as sweat beaded on his temple.

Amaya froze as she stared at him, her face paling as she yanked on her youki, pulling it back to her as quickly and tightly as she could until she ached because of it. Breaking the connection with her mate and child hurt, but the very thought that she was putting her family in danger hurt so much more. How could she have forgotten, she cursed herself. Her youki was different from other youkai because of what she was, and it was that difference that made it a beacon to those hunting them. And it had been because of her thoughtlessness that she and Satoshi had been forced to learn that lesson the hard way.

She had thought she’d been protecting them, looking out for danger, but it had been the doctor who’d taken her back in the fall of 2038, the one Satoshi had rescued her from before creating the earthquake, that had told her the truth. The gryfalcon’s hunters had been able to track them so easily before because of the uniqueness of her youki, and the way her power smelled like the ocean. No other marine youkai smelled as purely of the ocean as she did – or so they’d told her.

“Go inside and lock the door,” Satoshi said, his voice pulling her from her thoughts, the feel of his youki pushing her back, even as his focus remained on the forest in front of him.

“Satoshi – “

“Go,” he insisted quietly, his gaze still locked on a place beyond the trees. “I’m going to put up a wall. It won’t buy us a lot of time, but it should be enough.”

“No!” she refused as she reached out to him with her youki, reestablishing their connection, tugging on his youki as she shook her head, her eyes wide, her face pale. “The ground is frozen!” she hissed. “The last time you –“

“Amaya,” he growled, his voice strained by the effort it took, and she winced at the feel of his youki as he pulled back from their connection to focus the entirety of his youki on the task at hand. “Go. Inside,” he commanded, his tone allowing no room for argument, and she nodded as she pulled her youki in once more, coiling it tightly around herself as her brow furrowed in a mix of fear and concern. “I can handle the pain,” he said as he finally met her gaze, his eyes kind, but fierce. “Vanessa’s more important. She has to be.”

Amaya nodded as she sniffled, willing away the tears stinging behind her eyes. She knew how hard it was for him to use his power in the winter, when the ground was too cold, too frozen for anything to respond to him. The strain it took to erect the wall of vines between the trees would leave him with a migraine that would last for days, sometimes weeks, and she hated the pain he would be in as a result. The few times he had been forced to fight, to use his power offensively in the winter, had ended badly.

_‘That was one time, Amaya,’_ her youkai voice reminded her gently. _‘The other times . . .yeah, he’s been weakened. He’s had nose bleeds, and migraines from it, but he only ever collapsed the one time.’_

_‘He was unconscious for_ days _,’_ she replied as she shut herself away in the house, flinching at the snap of the lock, and watched as Satoshi stepped off the back porch and into the shin-deep snow. _‘I – I . . .’_

_‘You did what you had to in order to protect your mate,’_ her youkai countered fiercely. _‘Don’t ever forget that. Neither of you have_ ever _taken a life for the sole purpose of doing so. It has always –_ always _– been to protect each other, or Nessa.’_

_‘I can still feel his blood on my claws,’_ she thought as she looked down at her hands, grimaced at the shadows of memory. _‘I didn’t even really know what I was doing, I just . . .’_

_‘You knew enough,’_ her youkai soothed her. _‘You clawed at that rat youkai until there was nothing left of him. It wasn’t graceful, it wasn’t pleasant, but it was enough to save you both. Now, stop thinking about the past, doll. Smile, make Nessa believe everything’s all right. You might be scared, and your mate might be scared, but don’t you dare let Nessa know that.’_

Amaya nodded silently as she turned away from the window, her eyes coming to rest on the child that stood staring at her from the hallway leading away from the kitchen. Vanessa didn’t say anything as she watched her mother with wide eyes, her own youki pulled in tight around her, coiled like an overwound spring. She knew from experience the kind of ache one felt in holding their youki so tightly, constraining it until it felt strangled, hobbled, the coldness of fear and trace paranoia that came as a result. Countless times, Amaya had wished there was another way, that she and her family weren’t forced into hiding just to be have some modicum of safety, but this was the way things were. No amount of wishing would change that.

Sniffling as she pushed back her tears, wiped away the trace dampness from her cheeks, she knelt down and held out her arms to her daughter, hugging her tightly seconds later when the tiny girl crashed against her. The first lesson her daughter had ever learned, she thought, had been the most painful of them: how to coil her youki tighter and tighter until her power was almost invisible because of it. There had been no instruction, no guidance given to teach the girl how to hide her youki. But in the manner of Kujira, her daughter had learned everything from mimicking her mother. It was how Kujira survived the first five years of their lives. Everything they knew, everything they did, was learned by mimicking their mothers did. And perhaps that would be their saving grace, Amaya thought as she kissed Vanessa’s brow. If the ones Satoshi sensed were only able to feel her mate, then maybe, just maybe, her family would be able to survive.

 

 

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

 

 

 

 

**_20 December 2055_ **

**_Bangor, Maine_ **

 

Gwenhwyfar Marian Dobson, better known simply as Gwen, grunted when she felt the small hand connect with her cheek. Cracking one eye open, she stared at the toddler that had managed to climb out of his crib and into the too-small bed that she had curled up in the night before. She frowned at the sound of his broken sniffles, the pitiful furrow of his tawny brow and reached up to comb her fingers through his unruly curls, the low light hiding the ginger-blond highlights of his cinnamon-chocolate hair. Fat tears hung on the ends of his dark lashes, the fine hairs spiked together from how long he’d already been crying before he woke her up, his slate-blue eyes red and swollen, his cheeks wet.

She clucked her tongue as she reached up with one hand, smoothing the tears from his cheek before slipping the tip of her finger into his mouth and feeling along his gum line, blinking slowly as she counted the sharp edges she could feel just beneath the surface. He’d been fussy for days, waking up in the middle of the night only to cry himself hoarse by the next morning, it was why she had taken to sleeping in his room, contorting herself to fit in the bed meant for no one larger than a five-year-old.

“You gonna be able to go back to sleep?” she asked her brother, and watched as he shook his head, pouting as a few fat tears rolled down his cheeks.

Michael Arthur Dobson – Dobby as she called him – had been born just weeks after her seventh birthday, and she could still remember the look of pure love and adoration on her father’s face when he had held him for the first time. Far too ready to come into this world, her brother had been born at home, coming too fast for her mother to make it to the car, let alone the hospital. She could still remember the sound of her father’s nervous laugh, his testament that of all the babies he’d help birth in his years working in search and rescue, this one had meant the most.

Her brother had been no larger than one of her toy dolls, all wrapped in towels from the bathroom, his skin wrinkled and red and covered in some kind of goo. She laughed silently at herself as she remembered sitting with her brother, holding him only moments after he’d been born while their father tended to their mother. To think that that day had been just over two years ago now seemed impossible. She breathed out a laugh as she smiled, remembering the day almost a year ago that he had earned his nickname.

“Dobby is a free elf,” she said with amusement, repeating the way her brother had always asked to watch the old Harry Potter movies.

How many times had she found her brother sitting in front of the TV in the living room, stabbing the button with his little chubby fingers to make the tray slip out and pull back in, giggling all the while and saying “Dobby is a free elf”? Every single one of the movies – even some of the ancient black and white films – were fully accessible on the digital download service they had, but her father still insisted that the BluRay discs were better, promising her that you could see more from the disk than you could the digital download. Somehow though, that theory of his only applied to Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, and for some odd reason that she would never understand, something called a Monty Python.

“No Harry Potter?” Gwen asked, arching her brow when Dobby scrunched up his nose and shook his head. “You want me to tell you more of the story?” He nodded as he blinked, the action causing the tears clinging to the ends of his lashes to fall as he hiccupped, and shoved his fist into his mouth. “Okay,” she agreed with a sigh, and sat up slowly. “Wait for me?”

She kissed his forehead when he nodded, tossing back the thin Puppy Pals blanket as she moved, stretching out her legs before dropping her feet to the cool wooden floor. Lifting a hand to cover her wide yawn as her eyes squeezed closed tightly, she stepped from the room. Slapping her hand against the wall blindly as she slipped into the bathroom down the hall, she yawned a second time, her jaw popping as tears stung her eyes. It didn’t take her more than a few minutes to relieve herself, and wash her hands before splashing cold water on her face to help her wake up.

Not once in the past eighteen months could she remember her mother ever making the effort to go to her brother when he cried at night, or fussed in the morning. The only time she could remember her mother paying any attention to Dobby at all was when she was still breastfeeding him, but even that she had found a way around after only a few weeks. And in her mother’s abandonment, she had become her brother’s primary caregiver, the long and unpredictable hours her father worked leaving him gone more often than not.

Her father had called her mother’s inattention ‘postpartum depression’. She hadn’t known what that meant until she had asked Mrs. Jacobs, her guidance counselor, what the condition was, explaining to her that it often left new mothers feeling hopeless, frightened that they would hurt their new child, angry at the baby and not knowing why, even feeling as though they had to constantly watch everything they did or that their child did for fear that someone or something would harm the child. But the more Mrs. Jacobs had tried to explain it to her, the less she believed that that was what her mother’s issue was. Far too often, she had found her mother glancing at herself in a mirror or a polished window, turning this way and that and frowning critically at herself as though trying to assess her figure.

She didn’t understand it at all, Gwen thought as she stepped back into her brother’s room, and smiled at the boy waiting for her on the bed, idly chewing and sucking in turn on the fist shoved halfway in his mouth. She would give anything for him, do anything to protect him, to comfort him, or to make him laugh, but their own mother couldn’t be bothered to even look in on him. Perhaps it was why she was closer with her father, the girl thought as she lifted her brother up from the bed, settling him on her hip before she turned to leave the room. After all, her father had told her that their mother had been the same way with her, and maybe that was why she had always felt dismissed by the woman. But the very last thing she wanted, was for her brother to feel the same loneliness she often did.K

_“Gwen.” She groaned at the sound of her father’s warm voice, her brow furrowing as she opted to ignore it. His chuckle sounded so close to her, and she groaned once more when he gently shook her shoulder. “Come on, m’lady. I need you to wake up.”_

_“Dad?” Gwen blinked up at him in confusion, the scent of smoke and ash heavy on his clothing. “What time is it?”_

_“After two AM,” he answered with a sigh moving from where he’d been kneeling beside the couch to sit on the coffee table next to it. “Rough night?”_

_“I think he’s teething,” she said softly, keeping her voice down so as not to wake her brother. Moving slowly as she sat up, she kept her arms wrapped around her ten-month-old brother, supporting him as she held him in place. “He was screaming when I got home from school. His diaper hadn’t been changed at all. Mom was . . . I don’t know what she was doing,” she said, scowling as she shook her head. “She leaves him alone all the time and he doesn’t understand why._ I _don’t understand why. It took all the way to Prisoner of Azkaban before he finally calmed down enough to sleep.”_

_She watched her father bow his head, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands folded together between them as he sighed. “Your mother loves you, Gwen,” he said as he looked up to meet her gaze. “She just has a hard time connecting. Give her time. She was a lot better with you after you turned four.”_

“Connecting,” she scoffed under her breath, shaking her head to dispel the memory, as she moved into the kitchen. “More like she just didn’t want kids,” she whispered to herself.

Gwen ignored the light switch on the wall as she stepped into the kitchen, opting instead in favor of the gentler light spilling in from the window above the sink. The silvery moonlight reflecting off the snow outside was more than enough for her to see by, and she knew from experience that the blue-grey shadows it cast upon the floor and walls would help soothe the fussing child in her arms. Lifting her chin just in time to avoid being clacked in the jaw by her brother’s head, she sighed. She shivered as she stepped across the floor, the linoleum cold against her bare feet, offering her the barest edge of alertness.

_‘Just alert enough so you don’t drop him like you’ve almost done a few times, right, Gwen?’_ her conscience poked at her, and she rolled her eyes.

Pulling a frozen washcloth from the freezer, she handed it to her brother and watched as he took it to chew on the edge of it. Dobby had always refused the normal teething rings, hated anything aside from the washcloths she would soak in water and fold into small squares before putting into a bowl in the freezer. There were special ones she made for him, soaked in orange juice or lemonade that she gave him in the afternoons, treats of a sort that allowed him to teeth while also having a little bit of juice she didn’t normally give him. She had read somewhere that juice contained too many sugars and could be bad for his teeth, though she couldn’t remember where she had found the information.

“Yucky! I dun wike it!” Dobby exclaimed as he threw the frozen bit of cloth to the floor, and Gwen sighed.

“It’s going to be one of _those_ mornings,” she said more to herself than to her brother as she knelt down to pick up the cloth before tossing it to the counter.

She turned her storm cloud blue eyes to the window, watching as the thick white tufts of snow fell from the sky, and took in a deep breath before turning her attention back to her brother. The fit she had expected from him didn’t come, and she frowned in confusion as she shook her head, watching as the silent tears rolled down his cheeks. He twisted his hand just enough to force more of his fist in his mouth, pressing down on one side as he began to cry in earnest.

“Hey hey hey,” she coddled him, bouncing him gently on her hip as she tugged his fist from his mouth to look at his fingers. “At least you didn’t break the skin this time,” she said as she studied the two deep indents he’d made with the sharp corners of his budding teeth. “You have to be careful. No more biting,” she told him, meeting his gaze as she lifted her brows high on her forehead, and watched him pout as he stuffed his hand back in his mouth. “Are you sure you don’t want a cloth?”

He took his hand out of his mouth just long enough to answer her. “Story.”

“Okay,” Gwen replied, cupping the back of his head in her hand as she kissed his feather soft hair. “Where did we leave off?” she asked as she carried him to the stove, bouncing slightly as she walked, the jiggling gait always helping to soothe him.

“Horsie,” he reminded her as she took the teapot in her free hand, grimacing at the drool-slimed fist that brushed against her cheek.

“Ugh, the things I put up with for you, kid,” she jokingly complained as she set the empty teapot on the corner of the sink before carefully tugging the lid off in order to fill the kettle with water.

Doing things with one hand wasn’t easy, but she had long since mastered the skill, and had come to learn that the ability to split her focus between her brother and whatever else she was doing helped her out in other things as well. Like school, she thought with a sigh, thankful that it was winter break. Mrs. Jacobs had been the one to convince her to take the placement exam when it had become apparent to her teacher at the time that she was painfully bored in her classes. That same test had allowed her to skip a grade or two, and at the time, she had thought it was a great thing, but now?

She hated the thought of going back. She knew it meant that she would be leaving her brother alone once more, and almost wished she could take Dobby with her to her classes, but knew she couldn’t. How odd would that be, a fifth grader taking care of her little brother in the middle of school? She sighed as she shook her head. There was a part of her that wondered if she would be able to convince Mrs. Jacobs to let her do it, to be both mother and student during school, but another part – a much larger part – was afraid that asking that question would only shame her father. He did everything for them, and none of it was his fault, but how could she possibly make anyone understand?

“Ma-ma,” Dobby complained when she didn’t begin the story right away, pulling her from her thoughts.

“Gwen,” she corrected, wincing as she remembered the way her mother had yelled at her when the woman had heard her brother call her that before.

“Mama,” he insisted, and she sighed as she blew out a breath, too tired to care enough to correct him. “Story.”

“All right, all right,” Gwen agreed as she returned the full kettle to the stove, and turned on the burner beneath it. “Horsies,” she recalled, and giggled softly when he nodded. “Okay,” she said, and smoothed the tears from his cheeks with the backs of her fingers as she paced the floor from the sink to the dinner table and back again.

Closing her eyes as she shifted Dobby from her hip to her front, she held him closer as she hugged him tight, turning her head to the side in order to rest her cheek on his hair. “His horse was a beast of unmatched beauty, his color as pure and white as fresh fallen snow shimmered beneath the light of the moon, a phantom on four black hooves. Said to be a cross between an Andalusian and an Arabian, Corvus – as he was called – stood taller than either breed. He was graceful and dignified, commanding the attention of everyone – human and creature alike – without having to move at all. His eyes were blue, bright and clear like the summer skies, an unusual color for a horse, and perhaps that was why King Arthur had been drawn to him in the first place,” Gwen recited the story, opening her eyes wide as she reminded herself that she needed to stay awake, lest she drop her brother.

The whistle of the kettle startled her, causing her to jump slightly, and stare balefully at the silver pot on the stove as she turned around. Dobby whined as he lifted his head from her shoulder, pouting at the interruption to her story. She winced when he tugged on a fistful of her hair, the auburn locks looking dark as walnut beneath the watery light of the predawn morning. Turning off the stove, she reached out for the cabinet to her right and frowned at the feeling of paper beneath her hand.

“Got the bat signal, Dad?” Gwen asked with a smile as she took the note off the cabinet door to read.

_‘Called out at the witching hour for a car stuck on the cliffs, Lady_ _Gwenhwyfar. Should be home before sunrise. Love, Dad’_

She was eternally proud of her father, Captain Jacob Ethan Dobson, Alpha Team Leader for Penobscot County, Maine Fire Search and Rescue. He was a helicopter pilot and, while there was another man on the team he’d taught to fly, her father was the most seasoned of the team he led in every aspect of the job. She could still remember her father’s second in command, J.J., with his proud smile telling her that her father had been born for this kind of work.

Her father had taken her up over the coast for her fifth birthday, J.J. sitting in the back next to her on one side, Uncle Ricky on her other, keeping her safe as they let her watch as the whales came up to the surface of the Northeast Harbor to breathe and dance in the water. She’d forever treasure that memory, the sound of her father’s easy laughter, a sound that she heard less and less often from him. She knew he shielded her from a lot, she could see it in his eyes when he’d tell her about his days, turning whatever he’d been through into an adventure. For her, the hardest part of his job was knowing that he could be called away at any time, that he could be gone for hours or days, sometimes even weeks if he was called out to assist somewhere else, as he had been last year during the hurricane that ravaged the coast of New York.

“It won’t be long before Daddy’s home,” she told her brother as she tipped her head down to look into his wide-eyed stare, and grimaced at the long rope of drool that hung from the edge of his mouth, his small fist tucked inside. “I think dogs drool less than you do,” she said, and leaned as far away as she could when he took his slobbery fist from his mouth and tried to shove it in hers. “How about you chew on your hand for the both of us?” she suggested, and shook her head when the child quite happily shoved his fist back into his mouth.

She chuckled softly as she pulled a mug from the cupboard, filling it halfway with the steaming water from the tea pot on the stove and dropped an earl grey tea bag into it. Gwen had learned long ago that a full cup of anything was dangerous around her brother, especially if it was anything hot. His penchant for sticking his hand into cups and bowls often leading to sticky messes, and the occasional injury from an accidental scalding. Narrowing her eyes when Dobby reached out with the hand still fisted around her hair, she held her mug out of his reach and carried him into the living room. Maybe if she laid down with him while she told him more of the story he would go back to sleep. Anything for a few more hours.

 

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

  


Vanessa frowned as she looked down at her upturned hands, staring at the pale flesh as she folded her fingers closed to drag her fingertips over her palms, the tips of her claws tickling against her skin. There was no injury, no rash, or bumps of any kind, but still her hands burned, her skin stinging, aching. She’d had the dream again, she thought as she looked up toward her bedroom window, her eyes widening as she watched a large spruce tree rise from the ground, the wood groaning and creaking as it grew larger – wider – a thick vine shooting across the forest to wrap around the tree three times before stretching out as it reached for another tree.

She shook her head as she backed away from the window, tripping over the small stuffed bear her mother had made her, and falling back to land on her bottom, grunting as she hit the floor. She rolled to her side as she rose to her knees, her claws scraping across the wood floor to leave tiny pale lines on the surface as she scrambled to her feet. The ground was frozen, the earth silent and sleeping. She knew what it took just for her father to grow a simple flower when the ground was this cold, and didn’t understand why he hadn’t asked her to share her power with him as he had before.

She blinked as she opened her bedroom door, hearing the sound of the kitchen door closing, the snick of the deadbolt like a gunshot in her ears. Her brows drew together as she listened to her parents, her father’s voice tired and worn, her mother’s frightened, as they spoke in Japanese. She pursed her lips, watching as her mother helped her father down the hall to their bedroom, the man leaning heavily against her with his eyes half closed, his face pale and drawn.

Vanessa swallowed thickly as she stayed in the doorway for a moment longer, the sound of the door to her parents’ room closing with a soft click. Two years ago, she had tried to learn the language they were speaking, repeating a few of the words back to them, only for her parents to remain silent instead. For almost a year after that, they’d spoken in another language, one she couldn’t even begin to understand, until she’d forgotten the little Japanese she’d began to learn. It hadn’t been hard for her to understand the unspoken lesson they’d taught her – they didn’t want her learning Japanese because there were some things they just didn’t want her to know.

She knew they didn’t want her to worry, and it wasn’t that she wanted to be scared, but . . .

_‘But you know that when they speak in Japanese – or any other language – something bad is happening,’_ her youkai-voice pointed out, the sound of it exactly like her mother’s.

Closing the door quietly as she turned around, Vanessa slid down to sit on the floor, her back against the wall. She closed her eyes as she bowed her head over her bent knees, her arms wrapped around her legs. Her father was hurting now because he had thickened the forest outside their home, connecting the trees with the vines he has used to create a barrier. She could feel his power thrumming outside, knew how tired it would make him, but also knew better than to say anything about it.

It was the one thing about the winter that used to frighten her, but soothed her now instead. No matter how hard she tried, when the earth was frozen as it was now, she couldn’t feel it. It used to fill her with unease, but this year the disconnection brought her a melancholy sense of peace, a subdued appreciation for the ground that no longer felt to be calling out for her attention.

There was a part of her that didn’t care if she ever felt the earth again, and another part – stronger than the first – that longed to be one with the grass and trees and soil. To fall asleep in the forest and wake with the earth curled up around her hands, tiny little green vines no larger around than a strand of hair wrapped around her wrists and fingers. To be one with the earth in such a manner brought her such unparalleled comfort that some days, she almost forgot that she was the cause of her parents’ upset. But then there were days like today when she found herself reminded of all the things she had done, the things she couldn’t take back, and she bowed her head as her heart grew heavy with the memory.

_Vanessa glanced up from the drawing in front of her as she set aside the oblong yellow crayon, the colored stick made out of beeswax and colored with lemon zest and saffron. It smelled delicious, but it had only taken her one time of putting the end of it in her mouth to realize that the taste was terrible. She’d never again tried to taste her crayons, preferring to use them for drawing as they were intended for instead. Her mother turned away from the stove as she opened a cupboard above the stove, and pulled down a ceramic jar. Removing the lid, she added three scoops of the white powder inside to the pot simmering on the stove, before replacing the lid and putting the container back in the cabinet. She took in a deep breath, releasing it slowly before answering the question her daughter had asked only moments before._

_“Kujira are different. We don’t learn how to use our power in the same way as the others do. Kujira learn by mimicking their mothers, and because of that, we never learn how to command our youki without another youki there to guide us, or to be guided by us,” her mother said as she stirred the pot, her attention focused on the contents inside, even as she continued the story she’d been telling. “Your father is able to use his youki – his power – on his own, but it’s not the same for my kind. All that was between us, all that we were, was each of us individually, and all of us as one.”_

_Vanessa tipped her head to the side when her mother fell silent, looking up to meet the woman’s gaze when she turned away from the stove, moving to stand with her back against the counter beside the appliance. Amaya crossed her arms over her chest as she narrowed her eyes, her brows furrowing in thought as she met her daughter’s gaze._

_“When we wanted to change the sea, calm the tides, we would all sing together. When one of us was injured or weakened, we carried them in the center of the pod, singing to them and swimming around them until they were strong again. All Kujira have the power to heal through the songs we sing, but none of us are very powerful on our own. At least . . . I don’t think we are. I’m not sure. Whenever anyone us wanted to use our power, to heal or to change the sea in any manner, we would all focus together. I never really understood how we did it, only what I learned from my mother,” her mother said as she turned back to the stove, reaching across the top of the boiling pot to turn the dial, and stirred what was inside, before leaving the pot to simmer._

_She turned away from the stove as Vanessa lifted the hand-pressed paper made from corn husks up to her mouth, biting a corner off of it as she peered up at her mother. Her mother laughed softly when she scrunched up her nose, making a sour expression, and shook her head._

_“It doesn’t taste good,” Vanessa complained, and her mother answered her with a warm chuckle._

_“Just because we made it from the corn husks, doesn’t mean it still tastes like corn,” she chided. “Here,” the woman said, and held out her hand. “Come with me and I’ll show you what I mean.”_

_Vanessa laughed as she slipped from the seat at the table, skipping to her mother’s side as she took her hand and followed her outside. Sighing happily as she turned her face up to the warm spring air, feeling the sun on her cheeks, Vanessa laughed when she half-tripped half-skipped down the stairs and into the yard below. She followed her mother, holding her hand, as they stepped into a wide area between four trees, the ground covered in fallen leaves and tiny new sprouts of grass, but not much else._

_“Come here, Vanessa,” her mother called to her as she sat down, and the girl turned back, a bright smile stretching across her face as she bounced on the balls of her feet. “You’ve learned how to hide your youki by mimicking me, but today, I’m going to teach you how to dance. I first did this with your father a few years after we were mated,” she recounted as she pulled Vanessa into her lap, wrapping her arms around her and pulling her back against her chest to kiss her daughter’s cheek. “Close your eyes,” she instructed._

_Vanessa did as she asked, closing her eyes, and took in a deep breath, releasing the air slowly as she relaxed in her mother’s arms. She could feel the thrum of her mother’s youki, the delicate vibration of the energy against her own, and felt her own power respond in kind. Vanessa gasped, her tiny heart-shaped mouth parting as she lifted her energy with her mother’s and felt the youki twist and rise and fall until their separate powers were moving together as one._

_“Good!” Amaya praised. “This will get much easier to do as you get older, and you’ll be able to borrow what is offered, but you must never take, do you understand? If it is offered freely, you may use it, and combine it with yours, but you must never ever take what is not offered,” she said, and Vanessa frowned as she bit her lip, turning her head to look back at her mother. “I want you to take from me, and use it. Can you do that?” she asked with a frown, and Vanessa tipped her head as she bit her lip and considered the request. “You are so young, and this is your first time.”_

_Vanessa closed her eyes as she thought about her mother’s request, taking the power that was offered to her freely and feeling it bolster her own. Her lips curled up in a tiny smile of wonder as she twined her youki around her mother’s twisting it up only to push it down deep into the ground around them. The earth beneath them trembled as it came alive, responding with fervor, and Vanessa smiled as she felt the idea take hold in her mind. The earth groaned as it responded to her, a tearing sound growing louder near them as thick heavy roots coiled in the earth a few yards in front of them. The earth grew round and uneven, pushing out with a creaking rushing sound as the tree fairly exploded from the earth, rising higher and higher. Fine sprays of gold and red fanned out from top, the fragile flowers bursting forth with a delicate aroma, and moments later Vanessa fell back against her mother._

_“That tree’s a little taller than you are!” Amaya cheered, and Vanessa giggled. “Tired, sweetie?”_

_“It’s different when I borrow,” Vanessa said with a note of confusion. “I can feel it, like it’s mine, but I can’t . . . “_

_“You can’t hold on to it very well,” her mother finished the thought for her, and she nodded. “I remember sharing power with my mother and sisters like you and I just did. It was never for very long though. And I was always so hungry afterward,” she said with a laugh._

_“I just feel kind of sleepy.” Vanessa tipped her head as she pursed her lips in thought. “Mama? Why is the tree sitting like that?” she asked as she looked at the Crape Myrtle she’d created._

_She turned back to look at her mother, watching as Amaya blinked and studied the tree sitting oddly to one side with a frown. “I don’t know.”_

_Vanessa took in a deep breath, releasing it in a heavy sigh as she pushed herself to her feet, and walked over to the tree. The ground felt funny, she thought, springy and not hard, it didn’t make sense. Brows drawing together in a deep frown, Vanessa knelt down and pulled up the grass by the edge of the tree in front of her, only to scream as she tumbled back on her bottom. Scrambling quickly  to her feet, she stood and pushed frantically at the tree with all her might, the ground trembling beneath her feet._

_“Vanessa!” her mother cried, pulling her away from the tree before she could push it over as she was trying to, wrapping her youki around the girl. “I don’t know,” she said, and Vanessa felt her father’s youki twine around her as well, the twin embrace of her parents’ youki soothing the edges of her fear, the ground beneath her feet growing still as she stood with her face tucked against her mother’s stomach as she sobbed._

_“The tree is beautifully done,” she heard her father say with confusion, and she sniffled sharply as turned her face away from her mother to look at him, her vision blurred._

_“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to! I’m sorry!” Vanessa cried, sobbing as she shook her head, and pulled away from her mother. “Papa, you can fix them?” she asked, watching through her watery gaze as her father pushed the small tree over just enough to pull out the six small bodies from underneath the dark wood and twisted roots. Another body – larger than the others, but not by much – was pulled out next and laid carefully on the ground as he examined the creatures._

_Her father sighed as he looked at the white and brown rabbits, six tiny bunnies, and their mother. “I’m sorry, Vanessa,” he said as he lifted his head to meet her gaze. “They’re dead.”_

_Vanessa shook her head as she crumpled to the ground, sitting on her legs as she reached out to take the smallest one, its lifeless body limp in her hands. She could feel the bones shifting beneath the skin, broken and crushed, as she held it to her chest, crying into its fur as she sobbed her remorse, begging for forgiveness._

Vanessa blinked as the memory faded, her hands shaking as she rose slowly to step across the bare wooden floor of her bedroom. Clenching her jaw as she dug her claws into her palms, just enough to hurt but not enough to break the skin until the tears stinging behind her eyes, inspired by the memory, were gone. Closing her eyes as she released a deep breath, she unclenched her fists before opening her eyes once more. She hadn’t cried since that day, felt as though she hadn’t the right to when she had been the one to kill the bunnies sleeping in their nest. She also hadn’t wanted to use her powers at all since that spring day – only a little more than nine months ago – and despite all of her father’s gentle prodding and her mother’s encouragements, she had refused to grow anything on her own, not even a simple flower. But it was worse than that, she thought as she closed her eyes, dropping her chin to her chest. She hadn’t realized then, but she did now, her youkai-voice speaking a truth she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge.

_‘It’s not like you shook the earth on purpose,’_ her youkai-voice chided gently. _‘You were scared.’_

_‘And the time before that, I was angry,’_ she recounted with a sigh.

But it wasn’t just that, either. She hadn’t been able to get the image of the dead rabbits out of her mind, or forget the feel of the bones moving beneath the skin and fur from where they had been crushed by the roots and weight of the tree. The lives that she had taken couldn’t be replaced, just like the house she had broken when she was three couldn’t be repaired. She hadn’t meant to destroy the house, just like she hadn’t meant to kill the rabbits, but none of it mattered when she had been the one to break everything. And now they were leaving again, and even if her parents never said the words, she was certain they were leaving because of her.

Vanessa came to a stop in front of her closet door, reaching out for the cold brass knob, wincing at the feel of the metal beneath her hand. She never had liked the feeling of metal, it always seemed so cold and detached, there was never anything for her to connect to. Stepping inside and moving to the small space in the corner, she crouched down, carefully slipping her claws into the thin lines between the loose boards in the floor, and lifted them out to reveal the hole beneath. Reaching down for the bag she’d hidden inside, the pulled out the pack her mother had made for her of tapa cloth and deer hide. The straps that held the bag to her shoulders had been stuffed with raw wool, making it easier to carry the pack for long periods of time without it being uncomfortable.

Slipping the boards back into place, Vanessa opened the bag and removed a smaller bag made of tapa cloth with leather draw strings. She reached up into her closet for the dresses and clothes her mother had made for her, gathering each piece and folding it carefully before tucking it into the smaller bag, pulling the drawstring tight when she was done. Stepping out the closet with the bags in her hands, she looked at the braided nest bed she slept in and smiled when she caught sight of the small bear on the floor next to it that her mother had crocheted for her, the insides stuffed with cotton and flower petals.

Everything they had was made by hand, grown by her and her father. Their clothes were handmade out of tapa cloth that came from the paper mulberry trees, wool and cotton threads that had been carefully carded and spun before being woven into fabrics or knitted into sweaters and skirts, even linen that was made from flax plants. Her father had taught her how to grow the plants they used for clothing, her mother teaching her how to take the whole plant and make cloth or threads. She was even learning how to use the loom to make her own fabrics, and weave in designs from different colored threads. She was never separated from the natural world around her, wearing it on her skin, carrying it in the bags she used, walking in it, she thought as she looked down at the brown leather tie shoes her father had made for her from the furs of the jack rabbits he’d hunted for their dinner a few months ago.

_‘Nessa,’_ the voice inside her called gently, her youkai sounding exactly like her mother. _‘Don’t get distracted. You know you need to be ready. It comforts them, even if they never say it.’_

She nodded to herself as she carried the bags in her hands to the space by the door and set them down, before returning across the room to gather her teddy bear and the heavy blanket her mother had knitted for her. The yarn had been dyed in muted browns and dark greens, colors that she loved, but also colors she had long since learned would hide her from sight when they were out in the forest. She laid the heavy blanket out on the floor, folding it lengthwise neatly in thirds before rolling it down the middle and securing it with two thick deerskin bands, each one with another thick deerskin loop that stood out to be used as shoulder straps.

There was no question in her mind that they would be moving, running away into the night on an adventure that wasn’t really an adventure. She had learned from copying her mother, the tight way she coiled her power to keep it hidden, that whatever was happening now was more dangerous than either of her parents were willing to say. But if they wanted to make her think it was all a fun mysterious game, well, it was kinder to let them believe that she thought it was just that. A game. An adventure. And maybe, if they could all pretend that nothing bad was coming after them, then maybe – just maybe – whatever monsters were out there lurking in the shadows would stop chasing them.

“Hey, sweet girl.” Vanessa looked back over her shoulder as her mother stepped into the room frowning at the tight way her mother held her youki, and tightening her own in response. “Are you hungry?” Vanessa shook her head as she looked down, hating to be separated from the bond she shared with her parents, but knowing that sometimes that same bond was what brought out the monsters lurking in the shadows.

Amaya sighed as she stepped further into the room, turning her head to glance at the bags by the door, the rolled blanket sitting in front of them, and nodded to herself as she moved to sit on the bearskin rug beside her daughter. She laughed softly as she dipped her hand into the dark fur, smiling as she turned to meet Vanessa’s gaze.

“We’ve had this one since before you were born,” she told her as she brushed her hand over the fur. “It was a pretty harsh winter and we were up in the wilds of Canada near Grise Fiord. Your dad didn’t fare so well up there, the ground was frozen almost all year. It exhausted him all the time just to make simple things. That’s why he’s resting now.”

Vanessa nodded silently. “We’re going on an adventure, right?” she asked, forcing the smile, the excitement in her tone only there for her mother’s benefit.

“Mmhmm,” Amaya nodded  

They both knew that Vanessa knew the adventures were something more, maybe even something dangerous. Neither of them wanted to admit that Vanessa was aware of the danger, and maybe that was okay. Maybe pretending that they were safe was more comforting than admitting that they weren’t.

“We could go anywhere,” her mother offered.

“I like the snow,” Vanessa said softly. “I can’t feel the earth as well, but the snow is pretty.”

Amaya hummed her reply as she nodded, her eyes lifting to glance out the window across the room. “Your father says you’ll be able to feel the earth better in the winter as you grow older,” she advised, before turning her gaze on Vanessa. “Someplace with snow,” she mused. “Anything else?”

“I . . . I like the sound of the water, and the feel of the sun in the spring and summer. And . . . the smell of pine trees, and apple blossoms . . . and maple,” Vanessa offered shyly, and Amaya smiled as she pulled her daughter over to sit her lap, wrapping her arms around her as she held her back against her chest.

“Me, too,” Amaya told her, dropping a kiss to her hair before turning her head to rest her cheek on the girl’s silken hair. “Me, too.”

 

 

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Blinking slowly as she opened her eyes, Gwen’s mouth parted wide in a deep yawn, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes as her jaw popped. She offered up a groan of protest when small fingers hooked over her bottom teeth, a slobbery hand grabbing her jaw as a childish giggle greeted her.

“You need warning labels,” she told her brother with a grimace of disgust, her voice garbled around his hand.

“Mama!” the two-year-old greeted with excitement, slapping his hand against her chest as she took his other hand out of her mouth.

“Gwen,” she corrected him, and turned her head to look for the clock on the wall. Her eyes widened as she offered up an exaggerated gasp, turning her attention back to the child lying on top of her as she smiled wide. “Guess what time it is?” she cheered as she sat up.

“Horsies!” Dobby exclaimed in a conspiratorial whisper.

“That’s right!” she replied, standing from the couch, and sitting her brother on her hip, her arm around his back to hold him in place. “Daddy’s gonna be home soon, and we’re going to go see the horises. We need to get ready. You think you can stand up in the shower with me?”

Dobby giggled as he bounced on her hip, his eyes wide, cherubic cheeks rosy with excitement. “I can shower!”

“Good!” Gwen praised him as she carried him down the hall, only to stop as she looked at him through narrowed eyes. “Just don’t pee in the shower again. It’s not nearly as funny as you seem to think it is.”

She rolled her eyes when he laughed, sighing because she knew that her little brother would, in fact, pee in the shower again. He either didn’t get that the shower wasn’t meant for that, or just found it entertaining that he could. She didn’t much care which one it was, just so long as she could find a way to break him of the habit. Setting him on his feet with the instruction to wait for her in the bathroom, she ruffled his hair and moved down the hall to their bedrooms. It didn’t take her long to gather clothes for them both and towels from the hall closet, but her return to the bathroom ended in a defeated sigh.

“I’m not in the shower,” Dobby told her, his eyes wide in an innocent expression.

“Yeah, but you need to hang onto that thing if you’re going to try and aim for the toilet and not sit on it,” she told him, and shook her head when he looked at her with confusion. “Potty training a boy is not as easy as the books say, you know.”

“I can potty all on my own,” he insisted stubbornly, and she grimaced when he stomped his foot into a puddle he’d made on the floor.

Shaking her head as she looked up at the ceiling, Gwen prayed for patience, and looked back down to see her brother, in all his naked glory, giving her his best superhero stance. “All right, Superman, get in tub while I clean this up,” she told him, uttering a breathy laugh when he giggled. “Don’t!” she called out when he reached for the faucet. “The last time I let you turn on the water by yourself you nearly scalded us both. Wait for me,” she instructed, wiping up the mess he’d made with paper towels before spraying down the toilet and floor with bleach cleaner. “You’re lucky I love you, kid.”

“I love you, too, Mama,” Dobby replied sincerely, leaning toward her over the wall of the tub to kiss her cheek.

“That’s totally unfair,” she whispered to herself as her eyes misted.

It was less than an hour later when they both emerged from the bathroom, showered and dressed, her hair caught back in twin braids that started on either side of her head just below her ears, secured with cloth covered bands. Dobby’s hair had been towel-dried and combed, the little ginger-blond tipped curls on top of his head and at the nape of his neck, stood out against his darker cinnamon-chocolate hair, refusing to be tamed. She shook her head when he ran off toward the living room, chirping excitedly about horses and stories, as she carried their clothes to the hamper in his bedroom. She would need to do laundry later today, or tomorrow, she thought as she dropped the clothes inside, and moved to the closet to grab a jacket for her and the snow suit for Dobby, but for now, horses.

The tradition had started when she was younger than her brother was now, she recalled as she slipped her arms into the faux-down jacket, zipping it up as she carried her brother’s snow suit out to the living room with her. Anytime her father was called away in the middle of the night, or in the morning before she woke, he would take them out to a nearby stable when he came home. In the spring and summer, they would ride horses, her on a small tame mare, and her father on a stallion with Dobby seated in front of him behind the saddle horn. In the fall and winter, the old man who ran the stables would hook one of his Irish Cobbs up to a fancy carriage and drive them out to the same spot up in the clearing that her father always took them to on horseback. Her dad would spread a quilt on the ground while the horses were secured to a nearby tree, and they would sit on the blanket, munching on fruits and cheeses and muffins, whatever the stable owner’s mate had prepared for them that day, and her father would read to them stories about King Arthur, Merlin, and the Knights of the Round Table.

Sometimes, they only got a few minutes together before her father was called out again, but sometimes, just sometimes when they were lucky, they got to spend the whole day together. She smiled as she remembered the promise he’d made to her on her birthday last year, a promise he had reminded her of a few weeks ago. He would be taking time off soon, a month, maybe even two, and they would be a family; no interruptions, no rescues, no time apart. He had promised her that he was going to be there for both her and her brother. He had even talked about moving somewhere with them, to a different town, perhaps even closer to the stables, but not once had he talked about their mother going with them. That memory – his promise – was what brought her comfort on the hardest of days. Someday soon it would all be a reality, for her father had never once broken a promise to her.

“Gwampa and Gwandma are coming wif us?” Dobby asked as Gwen helped him into the snow suit, her brother turning his head down to watch as she tugged on the zipper.

“Yup,” Gwen agreed with a smile, zipping the suit up and tapping the end of her brother’s nose with her finger. “They like coming out with us,” she said, knowing that her brother didn’t really understand that the stable owners weren’t their real grandparents, but also knowing how much the elderly couple loved it when he referred to them with the familial titles. “Go get your boots,” she told him, smirking as he toddled away, laughing at the sight of him. He looked like the Michelin Man from the old commercials her dad had shown her, she thought.

Gwen laughed as she helped Dobby into his boots, trying to keep him still long enough to tie his laces as he bounced in front of her. She couldn’t deny the fact that she was as excited as he was, knowing that any moment now there would be a knock on the front door. Her father would be kneeling outside with a thick worn paperback novel in one hand, one perfect white lily in the other, as he asked her to join him on a merry adventure. Every chance he got, he would greet her that way, and she had grown to listen for the knock at the door, her excitement making her eyes sparkle and her cheeks pink as she would run to greet him.

“Daddy!” Dobby cheered when the knock at the front door sounded, and Gwen laughed as she fell back, losing her balance when he tried to get her to let go of his shoe so that he could run to the door.

“Hold on, Dobby!” she laughed as she slipped into the pair of faux-fur lined pink camo snow boots her father had bought her last month when her previous ones had grown too small. Smiling as she snatched her brother up from the floor, she settled him on her left hip and reached up to release the deadbolt before twisting the knob to open the door. “Uncle Ricky?” Gwen greeted with confusion as she looked past him outside, frowning when she saw the other three members of her father’s team. “Why are you knocking? Where’s Dad?”

Gwen frowned in confusion, her attention drawn away from Uncle Ricky to J.J., who stood behind him and to the side, as she watched a woman slip between them to step past her into the house, a sad smile on her face as she reached down to touch her shoulder. She’d met the woman only a handful of times when she’d gone into the station with her father, and knew she was a counselor of some kind, but didn’t understand why she was here now. Everything felt off, her suspicion growing with every heartbeat as she looked back to the man in front of her. He was her father’s best friend, her Godfather, and someone she called uncle, even though he was of no relation to her family.

Enrique Alvarez, better known as ‘Uncle Ricky’, knelt down just inside the door, folding his six-foot-three frame down in order to be eye level with the child in front of him. “Brenda’s going to stay here to talk with your mom,” he told her, and she shook her head, a frown marring her brow. “Your dad asked me to give you this,” he said as he held out a perfect white lily, and Gwen frowned as she took it slowly.

“Why isn’t Daddy here?” she asked slowly, meeting his gaze with narrowed eyes, her brow furrowed as she tried to ignore the feeling of trepidation coiled deep inside her.

The man in front of her pursed his lips as he released a slow breath through his nose, and held out his hand to her, palm up. “Lady Gwenhwyfar,” he spoke slowly, formally, “will you come with us on one last adventure?”

Gwen’s eyes widened as his words took her breath away, made her blood run cold, her mind screeching to a halt.

_“Daddy? You’re shaking,” Gwen pointed out with worry, glancing away from her father just long enough to make sure her brother didn’t wander too far away from them. He was by the horses, remembering to stay in front of them, she noted, before turning her attention back to her father._

_He sighed heavily as he reached for the thermos of coffee, pouring himself a cup and taking a long drink of the dark liquid before answering her. “It was a bad day, Lady Gwenhwyfar,” he told her, drinking more of the coffee before setting the plastic cup down. “We had a close call, a really close call.” He looked out across the field at her brother, smiling as he watched the boy play with the gentle old mare. “Gwen,” he called her attention as he turned back to her, his tone far too serious. “If anything ever happens to me out there, my team – your Knights of the Round Table – will come out to take you and your brother on one last adventure. They’ll help you say goodbye.”_

_“I don’t want to say goodbye,” she told him fiercely, only to be met with his sad smile as he reached out to brush his fingers over her cheek._

_“I know, my fair lady,” he soothed her, “but remember: no matter what happens, I’ll always be right here with you.”_

Gwen blinked rapidly as the memory faded, and shook her head in denial as she backed away a step. “I don’t want to say goodbye,” Gwen said, taking in a shaking breath as she lost her hold on her brother, the toddler sliding down her hip to stand on the floor. “I want Daddy.”

“I know,” Uncle Ricky said as he took her into his arms, holding her tight as she began to cry.

“Unca J.J., why’s Mama cwyin’?” Dobby asked. “When’s Daddy coming home? We’re supposed to go see the horsies. He pwomised! Daddy _always_ keeps his pwomises. Where’s Daddy?” he demanded, stomping his little foot.

Gwen choked on a sob as she felt Uncle Ricky tighten his hold on her, lifting her up as he stood, his arm slipping down behind her legs to carry her against his chest as she cried into his shoulder. She knew her brother didn’t understand why she was so upset, her grief only frightening him, and tried to fight against the madness of her tears. Lifting her face from the man’s shoulder, she looked back at her brother, blinking away the tears that blinded her, and watched as he was scooped up into J.J.’s arms, one of her father’s other teammates stepping inside the house to wait with the counselor.

Her control faltered as she watched him smile, listened to him laugh, her chin trembling as new tears fell. He didn’t understand at all. She choked on a sob as she curled closer to Uncle Ricky, thankful he was carrying her. She wasn’t sure she would have been able to stand on her own, let alone walk, she thought, her lips trembling as her tears fell like rain upon her cheeks. She blinked slowly as she lifted her arms to wrap around the man’s neck, hugging him as she sobbed and felt him rub her back, her hands shaking so much that she lost her grip on the lily.

She cried out as she turned, her breath catching in her throat as she tried to grab it before it could hit the ground, time slowing around her as she watched it fall. The long green stalk of the flower hit the cement pavement first, the ivory petals trembling as the bulb of the flower impacted, bouncing up once, twice, before rocking onto its side as it fell still. Her throat burned as she cried, reaching out for the flower that had been left behind, unable to tell anyone that it had fallen, her words too choked to be understood.

She closed her eyes as more tears fell, burying her face in the shoulder of the man who carried her. The farther they moved away from the flower, the colder she became, until her coat had lost all power to warm her freezing skin. If she had been able to save the flower, to keep a piece of her father with her, to save him . . .

She felt a hand touch her back as Uncle Ricky stopped walking, and looked up to meet the gaze of the newest member of her father’s team as she sniffled, her eyes widening when the lily was handed back to her. She wanted to tell Paul Clemmons – a man her father had always called “Shorty” – thank you, but she couldn’t. No matter how many times she opened and closed her mouth, the words wouldn’t come, the man understanding what she couldn’t say, as he kissed her hair when she folded the flower in her arms, hugging it close as she bowed her head down over it, her tears collecting in the bowl of the blossom. She watched in a daze as one crystalline drop rolled slowly down the delicate snow-white petal, the edge of the flower bending down as the drop hung onto the tapered edge before finally falling onto the rough dark cloth of Uncle Ricky’s jacket.

She gasped at the sound of her brother’s laughter, turning her head to watch as Jordan Jacobs – better known as J.J. – lifted her brother into his arms, tossing him into the air before catching him easily. He was Native American, as best she could tell, and the tallest man on the team, easily the tallest man she’d ever met. She could remember her father telling her once that J.J. was six-foot-ten, laughing as he’d recounted the man knocking his head against the top of the helicopter when he’d climbed in for the first time. Her brows furrowed as she stared at them, not knowing why she was thinking of that now, or what purpose the memory served. She watched as J.J. settled Dobby on his shoulders, her brother hanging onto his dark hair as he made horse sounds and told the man to ‘giddy up’.

He didn’t understand at all, and she didn’t know how to explain it to him. He was too young, too innocent, to be able to grasp the concept of death. Perhaps even too young to retain the few memories he had of their father, and she felt her broken heart shatter further at the thought that her brother may not remember him as he grew older. She watched as Dobby turned his head back to look at her, shrieking with laughter when he leaned back too far – to the point where he was almost falling – but J.J.’s hold on his thighs kept him in place, the child happy simply to be up so high.

“Mama, look!” Dobby cheered as he laughed. “The giant’s got me! He’s gonna eat me! Raaawwwrrr!”

“He doesn’t know, does he?” Uncle Ricky asked her quietly.

“Know what?” Gwen retuned just as softly as she watched her brother bounce on J.J.’s shoulders.

“That you’re not actually his mother,” he replied, his voice calm, but holding an edge of something darker. “Ethan wanted to get you two away from all this. Damnit,” he cursed, the tone of his voice telling her he was no longer speaking to her.

The careful control she had on her emotions was lost, the smile she offered her brother turning into a grimace as she turned to bury her face in Uncle Ricky’s shoulder once more. The whispered memory of her father’s promise came back to her, the shattered hope of the things she had wanted that could never be. Her brother’s naivete grated against the shattered pieces of her heart, his laughter like broken glass beneath her fingers. And as furious as she was that the child didn’t understand, she was grateful for it, too. For how would she ever be able to be strong for him, if he were crying, too?

Who would take her on picnics now? Who would remind her that she really was just a child, that it was okay for her to play? Who was going to read to her at night when she couldn’t sleep, or make her laugh as they checked under her bed for the imaginary monsters that seemed all too real to her now?

The knit gloves her father had bought for her did nothing to warm her freezing hands, as she looked down at the flower filled with her tears. All the plans they had made together, the trip they were supposed to take in March to go to the Pryor Mountains in Montana and watch the wild mustangs run free, were nothing but mocking whispers now. An aching numbness set in as she was lowered into the large SUV, her uncle snapping the seatbelt around her as she stared at nothing, felt nothing.

“He promised,” she whispered as the door closed beside her, her voice aching and hoarse, her words slow as though she wasn’t truly aware she was speaking. “We were supposed to be a family. He was going to stay home with us. We were going to go see the wild horses run, and watch the stars, and live like cowboys.” She blinked slowly as Uncle Ricky slipped into the front seat behind the wheel, J.J. in the passenger seat next to him. The numbness she felt inside spread outward as the car lurched into gear, making her unable to feel the safety belt restraining her, or the seat beneath her that supported her. “We were supposed to be a family,” she whispered again, her head pounding, chest aching as she turned her head to look out the window, watching as they drove past the houses, the snow-covered lawns. “He promised.”

Gwen blinked slowly as she leaned to the side, resting her temple against the cold glass of the window. There was no comfort in the sight of the snow-covered city that slowly faded away, blending into longer stretches of road guarded on either side by dense forest. The same things she used to find exciting and enchanting now left her numb instead, aching with an emptiness so fathomless she feared she would never be able to find her way out.

“Horsies, Mama!” her brother cheered as he laughed, his little hand reaching out to swat against her arm.

Fire burned within her, fast and uncontrolled, her desire to snap at the toddler waylaid only by the sight of the flower in her hand and the smile on her brother’s face. He didn’t understand, she reminded herself as she turned back to the window. Her eyes narrowed as her brow furrowed, the dismissive breath she released fogging against the window when J.J. tried again to explain to him once more that their father had gone to Heaven.

Dobby was two, she thought with irritation. He didn’t get the concept of Heaven any more than he understood that there wasn’t really a man in the moon who turned the light off during the day and on at night. They were just words to him, places that sounded real, but weren’t. She wanted to yell at the men in the front seats, tell them to stop filling her brother’s head with fairytales that weren’t real and never could be real, but in the end, the words that came forth were different.

“How did it happen?” she found herself asking, her eyes stinging, but dry. She couldn’t even cry anymore, she was just . . . empty.

“We were up over Cadillac Mountain,” Uncle Ricky said, his voice steady, but she could still hear his upset. “A car went down over the ridge. We’ve been telling the city for years that there needed to be guard rail, or something there, but they never could decide whose job that was.” He sighed heavily as he flipped on the car’s turn signal, the rhythmic clicking loud in the silence. “It was a double tie-in,” he told her. “Your dad ever tell you about those?”

“Yeah,” Gwen told him, her tone lacking any real emotion. “He said they were the most dangerous.”

“They are,” J.J. agreed, his smooth deep voice offering her a measure of comfort that Uncle Ricky’s never had. “Boone was able to secure the car, but then it started slipping, and your dad had me take over flying the chopper so that he could go get him. He had re-secure the car first. We got out the baby first, that baby carrier saved the kid’s life. Then we got out the mom. Your dad got Boone out, but in doing so, his own line got tangled in with the cables used to secure the car. The chopper can’t hold that kind of weight. The engine was burning. We kept yelling at your dad, promising that we would get him up, but we only had seconds and he knew it. He cut his line before anyone could stop him, and we had no choice but to cut the line for the car. Your dad sacrificed himself to save all of us.”

“Why didn’t you go back?” she asked, her voice breaking as desperation took hold. “He could be alive down there waiting for someone to find him! We have to – “

“Baby girl,” J.J. interrupted her. “The height he fell from, and everything that was waiting for him at the bottom . . . he was gone on impact. Nothing and no one could have survived that fall.”

“It’s not fair,” she whimpered, gasping as she struggled to breathe, her chest aching as fresh sobs tore from within her, tears blurring her eyes. “I want him back! Bring him back!” she demanded, her voice little more than a choked whimper.

“I’d give anything to do just that,” Uncle Ricky promised her, reaching back to her between the seats and letting her hold his hand for a moment as he waited at a red light.

“He doesn’t understand,” she said, meeting the man’s gaze in the rearview mirror and flicking her eyes toward her brother. “What do I tell him when he starts asking why Daddy isn’t coming home?”

Uncle Ricky rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand before pulling his arm back and returning his hand to the steering wheel. She watched his eyes move, shift focus, as he looked between her and the road ahead.

“I don’t – “ he began, only to be cut off by J.J.’s steady words.

“You tell him that your dad’s gone on an adventure that only he can take, and that someday, when the time comes, he’ll be able to go on that adventure with him.”

The words J.J. offered were kind, formed in such a way that Dobby would understand even if he didn’t understand everything it meant, but they didn’t take away her pain. She knew what would be waiting for her when they finally got home, and it wouldn’t be a loving compassionate mother with her arms open and waiting for them. There would be no one there for her to cry on, no one to comfort her, or hold her and tell her that it was okay to be sad. Instead, she would be expected to keep her brother out of sight, to tend to his needs and keep the house in order so that her mother didn’t have to. And, if needed, there was an even greater possibility that her mother would expect her to provide her with comfort as well.

The burning ache that had resurfaced dwindled, leaving behind an emptiness that froze her from the inside out, raising goosebumps along her arms as she shivered from a cold only she could feel. Her eyes closed slowly as she felt the world around her drift away. Her eyes opened halfway as she watched the fields and mountains of snow blur into a sea of shimmering powder as they drove past, turning the world outside her window into one long stretch of never ending white. The culmination of everything she felt resulting in a piercing ache so deep she feared she would never be free of it, and knew it was something she would never forget.

 

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

 

 

Amaya closed her eyes as she latched the trunk of the car, the ten-year-old four door sedan a make and model of car that was too common in build and muted in color to stand out. Even on a lonely stretch of highway, the vehicle was practically invisible – forgettable. Her mate had the money to buy them anything they could want, the accounts he’d received almost two hundred years ago, after his father’s demise making him a very rich man, but they’d long since learned how easy it was to trace the money from them, to be found from something as innocuous as an ATM withdrawal.

Their bags were tucked inside the car, everything they needed in order to leave on a moment’s notice, as well as the few things they held dear. The box with the accounts and files Satoshi had obtained upon formal notice of his father’s demise, the file box that held the information he’d amassed over the years about those who had been hunting them, along the information she had been able to steal when she’d been captured so long ago, were tucked inside a gym bag behind the front seats, making the information accessible and easy to grab if they needed to change what vehicle they were using, or abandon it all together. And the book – the giant tome – that held their stories, the histories of both their families, everything they wanted Vanessa to know if and when they died, and the things they both wished she’d never have to learn – passages and letters written in Japanese with no translation to go with them – was on the back seat beside Vanessa’s car seat. Perhaps it was cowardly on both their parts, but there were some things that neither she nor Satoshi had the will to say, but they were things that had to be said anyway.

She couldn’t shake the fear that chilled her hands and made her heart race, the memory of the focus her mate had held as he’d stared out into the forest earlier that morning, looking at something only he could feel. The holes he’d dug through the snow and into the frozen earth below before standing inside them with bare feet, shivering as he held his fists clenched at his side, his claws piercing his skin to allow his blood to drip down into the ground beneath him, helping him to do what seemed impossible. He’d refused to let her be with him, to let her lend him her youki, and the exhaustion he’d forced upon himself in order to protect them all frightened her as much as it angered her. She wished, not for the first time, that everyone would simply leave them alone and let them live in peace.

Amaya moved away from the car, stepping back into the house slowly as she cast her eyes around the kitchen and living room. The ghost of a childish giggle sounded from her memory, the faded image of her daughter running through the house with her waist-length dark cherry wood hair trailing behind her, her meadow grass eyes shining as she played, as she danced. Her gaze traveled over the walls, tracing up over the twisted vines of honeysuckle growing from the open slats in the floor to perfume the house with its delicate scent. The two-inch space cut into the floorboards around the living room had been opened to reveal the dirt underneath, the covered firepit in the middle of the living room and the fireplace built into the far wall, keeping the ground beneath warm enough that her mate and child never had to exert much energy at all to keep the plants, created from their powers, living in the cold.

Her lips turned up in a bittersweet smile as she caught sight of the braided hammock made of the thickened vines of wisteria and star jasmine – her daughter’s creation – also the child’s favorite place to nap when she was tired. How many times had she come out into the living room, called forth by her daughter’s shrieks of joy, only to find the girl hanging from the vines that ran across the ceiling, cheerfully saying that she was the princess of the forest? She could see the ghost of her daughter climbing the woven twisted branches of the climbing roses Satoshi had made, their thorns soft and pliable, making them safe for the girl who had never once stopped to question the plants she was always surrounded by.

Her brow furrowed as she looked at the silent flat screen secured to the wall, the single splurge her mate had given into was quite possibly the reason they’d been found this time. Vanessa loved to watch Disney movies; Ferngully, Beauty and the Beast, and Moana being her favorites. Frozen, the story of Princess Elsa with a power she couldn’t control, had been how Satoshi had taught Vanessa to hide her power, but in order to watch the films they’d had to set up an online account with a credit card attached for payment. The expression on Amaya’s face fell into despair as she closed her eyes, feeling the sting of tears, regret darkening her heart with the knowledge that in order to keep Vanessa safe, they would be forced to deny her the things she loved.

There were, of course, old tapes and discs of the movies that could be purchased, but those things were only available from online auction sites, and in order to view them, they would have to have an electric bill. And an electric bill was yet another way they could be tracked. She had done this, Amaya thought, her lips parting as her brow furrowed, her eyes closing in dismay. All she had wanted was for Vanessa to have a normal childhood, and Satoshi had granted her request, but in doing so she’d put them all in danger.

Turning away from the living room, Amaya released a deep slow breath as she opened her eyes, focused her thoughts on the family waiting for her. Her steps were slow as she moved down the hallway, a smile tugging her lips up at the corner, softening her eyes, as listened to the sound of her mate’s voice, her daughter’s quiet giggles. A soft dusting of coral rose to color her cheeks as she stepped into the open doorway of the bedroom she shared with her mate, their daughter sitting up in the middle of the giant bed with a few pillows tucked behind her back. Her father was seated on the left side of bed next to her, one leg resting on the bed, bent at the knee, and the other leg hooked over the ankle of his bent leg, his foot on the floor.

Vanessa had offered no protest a few hours earlier when her father had come into her bedroom and removed the large panel in the floor that revealed a patch of frozen earth below. The girl hadn’t even been surprised. Instead, Amaya had watched as Vanessa had climbed into her father’s lap, offering him her power even as she refused to grow the earth on her own. Amaya had stood silently by, stretching her youki out to her mate as she offered him her power as well, watching as Satoshi returned the room to nature, thick vines and roots climbing up from the ground below to cover the walls and break through the windows only to seal them shut once more.

Bowing her head as she looked down at the floor, Amaya tipped her head to the side as she caught sight of the terracotta pot sitting on the floor by her mate’s foot. He was going to try again, she thought as she smiled sadly, nodding to herself as she watched him reach down to grasp the pot, following it as she looked up. It struck her once more, as she watched them, just how much Vanessa took after her father. Her daughter’s glossy dark mahogany hair – just like her father’s – so brilliant it shined in the low light of the lamp beside the bed, was woven through with ribbons of cherry red and burnt honey, and curled ever so slightly in the most delicate loose waves. Vanessa’s heart-shaped crimson mouth opened in a round ‘oh’ as she gasped, meadow grass eyes shining like jewels with her excitement, a light dusting of rose coloring her porcelain cheeks as she studied the pot of earth her father held.

Amaya’s smile widened as Satoshi leaned back slightly, the tight braid he kept his hair held in moving away from his back, and for the briefest second, she was able to see inside the collar of shirt to glimpse the top of the crest he kept hidden. Blinking slowly, her arctic eyes focused on the jagged lines seated at the top curve of his back, the slate blue marks against his alabaster skin – the same color as the twin slashes across the backs of his hands – looked like a mountain cut in half down the middle. His mark had been different from his father’s, different even from his mother’s, he’d told her, and it had been the shape and color of his crest that had set him apart from the rest of his family.

_‘The river between the mountains,’_ she thought, recalling her mate’s words from so long ago.

“I know you like watching me create the vines, the flowers and the trees when I tell you bedtime stories,” Satoshi said as he held out the pot to Vanessa, and Amaya leaned to the side just enough to watch as her daughter lifted a hesitant hand, taking the planter from him only when her father made it clear that he wouldn’t let her refuse him. “It’s time for you to grow things again. You cannot deny your power forever, my child. What happened with the rabbits was tragic and upsetting, but you need to learn from it, not run from it.”

“I don’t want to hurt anything,” Vanessa said, her voice so soft Amaya barely heard it as she stepped forward, moving to sit on the right side of the bed, their daughter nestled between she and her mate.

“Put your fingertips on the soil, Vanessa,” her father instructed. “Close your eyes and tell me what you feel.”

Amaya nodded when Vanessa looked up to meet her gaze, presumably to look for a way out, but she agreed with Satoshi, it was time. Vanessa’s eyes darkened with hesitation and worry, her lips parting as she took in a deep breath before she bit her lip and let her eyes fall closed. Amaya looked up at her mate, studying the expression on his face as he turned to meet her gaze, a cautious hopeful smile warming his eyes.

“I feel . . . “ Vanessa paused, a frown drawing her brows together, her eyes remaining closed as Amaya and Satoshi turned their attention back to her. “. . . Vibrations?” she said with confusion, opening her eyes as she looked at her father. “I don’t understand.”

“What is in there is a living thing, a part of the earth itself,” Satoshi told her, and Amaya smiled softly as she watched them. “Try to pull the vibration toward you.”

Vanessa’s brow furrowed deeply as she looked down at the dark soil in the earthen pot. Amaya could feel her daughter’s youki unfurling from around her to wrap around the stone container in her hand. Her lips pulled up in wonder as she focused on the feel of her daughter’s energy, the way it seemed to be winding around the pot only to push up from the bottom of it slowly at first, and then more forcefully as she gained confidence.

Vanessa gasped, and Amaya felt her daughter’s youki fall away to curl back in around the child once more, the power coiling tighter around her until it was barely a ghost of its former self. “It’s a worm,” the girl said as she tipped her head. “But I don’t understand. How come I can move it, but I can’t move other things?”

“Because you didn’t move the worm, daughter of mine,” Satoshi told her with a proud smile. “You moved the earth around it.” His shoulders moved as he took in a breath. “Try to move the worm higher,” he instructed.

Vanessa nodded as she closed her eyes, her youki unfurling once more to wrap around the pot, infusing the terracotta container and the soil within. Amaya watched curiously as the worm seemed to wrap itself in a small loop, tiny small tendrils holding the invertebrate in place as it was lifted higher. She shook her head as she watched a small nest of emerald vines form beneath the worm, rising on either side to cradle it as the creature was lifted out of the soil, a single perfect white blossom opening inside the circle made by the worm, the delicate scent of jasmine filling the air.

“That wasn’t quite what I meant,” Satoshi said as Vanessa released her youki, pulling the power back in once more to coil around herself, “but it works. With each creature that makes its home inside the earth: the foxes in their dens, and rabbits in their nests, to the chipmunks and squirrels in the hollowed homes they build in the trees, to the fawns nestled in the high grasses, you will feel their vibrations. The larger and stronger the creature, the more powerful the vibration.”

“Like the bear and the fat rabbit,” she proclaimed with a giggle, and he nodded. Vanessa frowned as she fell quiet, narrowing her eyes as she pressed her lips together as she thought over her father’s words. “What about the darkness?” she asked, and Amaya frowned as she turned her gaze to Satoshi.

“The darkness?” her father repeated as he shook his head in question.

“When we were outside this morning,” Vanessa explained as she stared at the pot in her hands through a narrowed gaze. “It felt . . . dark, really dark, like . . . all the happiness was gone. It felt like it was watching me, but I wasn’t afraid because you and Mama were with me.”

“If you ever feel anything like that again, Vanessa,” Satoshi warned her, “and your mother and I are not with you, you must run. Run as far and as fast as you can to get away from that. That . . . darkness . . . wants only to harm you, and you must never let it.”

“Can I stop it?” Vanessa asked, and Amaya shook her head as she blinked back the tears that stung at her eyes.

“No,” Amaya said, drawing her daughter’s attention. “Don’t ever try to fight it. It will hurt you. You must always run from it. Do you understand?”

Vanessa nodded, her eyes wide. “Good girl,” her father praised. “Now,” he said, and tapped his claw against the terracotta pot the girl still held. He smiled when she handed the pot back to him. “Worms are as much a part of the earth as the soil itself. They are born within it, consume it for the food they eat, and even create it when they – “

“Poop!” the girl exclaimed with a wide smile and giggled.

“Yes,” Satoshi agreed with dry humor as Amaya laughed. “Which is why their vibrations will always be the hardest to feel, and why returning them to the earth is not truly killing them. They will be reborn into the flowers you create, the trees you grow, the blades of grass that push up from the soil in spring.” Satoshi smoothed his fingertips over the outside of the pot as he glanced at it and then his daughter. “This pot, we can push our power through it because it is made of the earth. It has been hardened by fire, by heat, but it still remains a part of the earth,” he told them as he closed his eyes. “Glass and wood work the same. Plastic, metal, vinyl, even most rubber – considering how much it’s been processed – will always make you feel separate, detached from the earth inside of it.”

“That’s why you always cut holes in the floors?” Vanessa asked, and Satoshi smiled as he nodded.

A gentle smile brightened Amaya’s expression, her eyes softening as she watched Satoshi focus his youki into his hands, and then into the potted soil. Tendrils of green, barely wider than strands of hair and curled into tight spirals, came up from the soil, growing around the tiny nest the worm was in and creating a small cave over top of it, the stalks growing thicker and darker as the spirals slowly unfurled. The thin tips at the tops grew larger, widened and became bulbous, the dark green splitting as it flared out to the sides.

Amaya smiled at the sound of their daughter’s gasp, her pale blue gaze flicking to Vanessa for just a brief moment, before turning back to watch as the bulb opened wide, revealing the bright white cloud of tiny petals standing together. Her lips parted as her smile grew wider, her hand lifting of its own accord to cover her mouth, and for just a moment, she forgot that her daughter was there between them, the sight of the flower casting her back in time.

_Amaya leaned back against the ancient tree behind her as the rain began to fall gently around her, whispering through the trees as the leaves trembled with each droplet that danced upon them. She closed her eyes as the mist in the air around her grew heavier, the rain gaining speed as it continued to come down, the water dampening her skin as it slipped through the woven strips of leaves of the makeshift clothing she wore. She had a choice to make, a choice that all Kujira went through during this solo journey she was on, but she wasn’t sure if she was ready to make the decision._

_Blinking in confusion as the rain suddenly stopped dripping on her, she wiped the water from her face and eyes, and looked up at the thick foliage above her head. The ferns that surrounded her now were taller than any she’d seen, bent around her as if in prayer, forming a cavern that stretched down past her feet with just enough room on either side of her for someone to sit next to her. The deep green leaves that had erupted from the ground on either side of her were braided together and at the top as well, the design holding her attention as studied the leaves. A curious smile bent her lips as she lifted her hand to touch the ferns beside her, and she giggled quietly when she found that they were almost feather soft._

_“It’s a bit late to be out alone, isn’t it?” Amaya gasped as she looked up, her eyes widening as she met the face that belonged to the voice. An earth youkai? she thought, only to sense that there was something more, something familiar. His hair the color of black cherry wood and his eyes the color of meadow grass. He was crouched in front of her just outside the entrance of the cavern – the covering he had created for her – his arms resting on his thighs as his hands hung down between his spread knees. “I’ve seen you before,” he said as he motioned to the opening of the covering in front of her, and she nodded as she moved her legs, curling them to the side to offer him room to join her. “You’ve always seemed so sad,” he remarked as he sat down in front of her, his legs folded beneath him. “If you don’t mind my asking,” he began hesitantly, and she frowned as she shook her head curiously. “Do you . . . not own a . . . proper . . . kimono?” he asked, stumbling over the query as a furious blush dusted his cheeks, and her frown deepened._

_“Kimono?” Amaya repeated the word that sounded familiar, but held no meaning for her._

_“Kimono,” he repeated, lifting his arms to indicate the clothing he wore._

_Her mouth opened, her lips rounding in a silent ‘oh’. “I don’t actually own . . . any . . . clothes,” she said, her brows drawing together as she realized how strange that must sound to him, and watched as he narrowed his eyes in confusion. “I don’t live on land. I – I guess you could say . . . I’m just . . . visiting,” she offered with a shrug, and looked down at the makeshift smock she had braided together from the long thick blades of the forest grass plant._

_“I don’t understand,” he said as he studied her. “I know you’re youkai, but I can’t . . .”_

_“Kujira,” she said after a moment, taking pity on him. “Shachi, technically,” she offered._

_“Kujira,” he whispered, and she watched as his eyes widened as he shook his head slowly. “You can’t be . . . Kujira are just a myth . . . “_

“Did your daddy teach you that?” Vanessa asked, and Amaya blinked as the memory dissipated around her like so much fog.

“No,” Satoshi denied softly, and met his daughter’s gaze. “My father was never able to grow the earth as we can. He . . .  preferred destruction,” he said as he handed the flower to his daughter. “I taught myself how to do this, how to create.” He offered a smiling pout as he turned his head, met Amaya’s gaze as she smiled, a blush rising to her cheeks. “But that story is for another time. I have it on good authority though, that your mother has a very special birthday present to give you this year.”

Vanessa gasped as she turned her wide eyes on her mother. “You do?” she asked.

Amaya nodded quietly, her eyes brightening at the way her daughter’s youki wrapped around her, the gentle tugs that spoke of her excitement, her desire to know more. “I do,” she confirmed. “Today, you turned five years old,” she reminded Vanessa, as she turned to lie back on the pillows beside her daughter, and wrapped her arm around the girl’s small body when she curled close to pillow her head on her shoulder. “In my family’s tradition, I will begin to tell you a story. Once a year, on your birthday, I will tell you more about the story, and you will get to ask one question.”

“Why only one question?” Vanessa asked, and Amaya lifted her gaze to meet her mate’s eyes as she chuckled.

“Because this is a story that is meant to last a lifetime, my daughter. Too much cannot be revealed at once. It will never truly be finished, but someday, when you have a child of your own, you will tell this story to them. It will grow longer as you add your own story to it, but the first part – the story that I tell you – will always remain.” She looked down when she felt her daughter snuggle closer, and kissed her hair.

“When will your part of the story be finished?” Vanessa asked as she turned her head to look up at her mother.

“After many years,” she answered, and tugged her fingers through the ends of her daughter’s hair, playing with the baby-soft strands. “The story my mother told me did not come to a close until I was twenty-six,” she revealed, and chuckled softly. “By that time, the original story had grown much longer. You see I was the youngest of ten children. With each child, more is added to the story and it grows longer.”

“It does?” her daughter asked, her little hands pressing against Amaya’s stomach and the bed beside her as she turned and pushed herself up to see her mother’s face.

“It does,” Amaya nodded, smiling as she wrapped her youki around Vanessa, using the energy to encourage her to come closer. “Come now, lie back down and I will begin.”

Vanessa scrambled to lie down next to her once more and Amaya chuckled softly as she kissed her daughter’s hair, the sound of her amusement tinged with something just a little darker, a little sadder, as she realized that these moments would be coming to a close almost as soon as they had begun. It wouldn’t be much longer before Vanessa would be too big to cuddle against her, perhaps too old to want to lay together as they were now. And perhaps, it cut her more deeply because her daughter took after her father – a youkai of earth and water. She couldn’t share the story with Vanessa the way her own mother had shared it with her.

She would never be able to open her mind to Vanessa, to share her thoughts and memories and emotions through the bond that existed between Kujira – between Shachi. Only when Vanessa was an infant, had she been able to share her mind with her child, feel what she felt, and even hear the whispers of her youkai-voice. She had known instinctively when Vanessa was hungry, or thirsty, or lonely without the child ever once having to cry to gain her attention. But as the months had turned into years, and her daughter grew older, the connection had faded, leaving nothing behind but ghosts of a bond she once knew. And when Vanessa had turned three, the telepathic bond had been lost completely, leaving behind only a faded mockery of the once strong mental connection in the braided bond of the youki she had shared between herself and her mate – and now her child.

Amaya closed her eyes as she forced the dark thoughts back, pushing them away as she swallowed the melancholy that threatened to bring tears to her eyes. Her daughter wouldn’t understand her sadness, and her mate? The things she had told him in an effort to make him understand something that truly couldn’t be understood, but only experienced . . . for him to know how much it pained her to be without that connection . . . he would believe she regretted him, and that was the last thing she wanted.

_‘You can still speak with both your mate and child through your youki. It may not be the same, but it’s more than most ever have,’_ her youkai-voice reminded her, and Amaya offered a mental nod in reply. _‘No other marine or aquatic youkai have the telepathy of Kujira, because no other youkai actively chooses to remain in their youkai forms throughout their entire lives as Kujira do. Even the kurage – the jellyfish youkai – they live on land, rarely ever taking their youkai form. You gave up a lot when you left the ocean, Amaya, but you gained so much more. Never forget that.’_

Amaya nodded once as she took in a breath to speak. “This story begins so long ago, across the great waves of history, stretching beyond empires that rose and fell, under the leadership of names you’ll learn, and others you’ll never know” she began, proud of how steady her voice was even as she felt choked by the darkness of her own emotions. “In the deepest, coldest waters that surround Japan, there lived a princess.”

“A princess?” Vanessa asked as she twisted her mother’s hair around her fingers, a confused pout coloring her words. “How can a princess live in the water?”

Amaya chuckled softly. “Listen, dear one, and you will learn.” Taking in a deep breath, she released the air, blinking a few times to steady her mind before she continued. “She was known as Chiyokohime, though it was not her true name. You see, the princess was the tenth daughter of the thousandth generation, the purest bloodline stretching all the way back to the beginning – to the first mother. It was believed that when she came to the age of maturity, she would hold all the power inside her that had been spread across her family. She would be the strongest of her pod, and would lead them into a new generation, guide them down a new path.”

She could feel the warmth of her mate’s gaze on her, the heaviness of his attention as he listened to the story she told her daughter. She never had been able to speak to him of her family before, of the expectations set before her. He was listening to her now, the fascination in his youki softening the edges of the turmoil that remained within her, soothing the ache that never truly went away.

“Chiyokohime was Kujira – shachi,” she clarified, and grinned at the question she knew would be coming.

“You’re shachi, aren’t you, Mama?” Vanessa asked as she turned her head to look up at her, and Amaya smiled as she bent her head to kiss her daughter’s brow.

“I am,” she affirmed, and tapped her daughter’s shoulder with her fingertips, encouraging her to lie down once more. “Kujira are different from all other youkai, even from other aquatic youkai.”

Amaya fell silent as she braced herself, a sad smile tipping her lips unsteadily when she felt the brush of Satoshi’s youki against hers, his effort to soother her, to offer her his strength both comforting and damning. The things she’d never been willing to talk about with him, she was now telling their daughter, and though pieces of the fairytale might sound innocent to her daughter, she knew her mate would understand their true implications, and she feared what he would think of her when it was all said and done. 

“You see, Kujira live their lives in the ocean. They are taught how to take a humanoid form, yes, but very rarely ever take it. For a Kujira, male or female, to choose to live on land, they are rejected by their pod. If they ever choose to return to the sea, they return alone. They may swim with their animal cousins, but they will never know the connection of their own family again.”

“Amaya,” Satoshi whispered, his brows furrowed, his lips parted as he stared at her through wide eyes.

She shook her head to forestall whatever her mate wanted to say. “The Queen, Chiyokohime’s mother, she commanded the pod. It was her decision who mated, and who they were mated to. She decided where they hunted, where they called home. She decided when a new pod was formed apart from her own, she was even the one who decided when new life was brought into the pod. If new life was created without the Queen’s approval,” she said, and paused as she swallowed back the lump in her throat before taking a deep breath to continue the story, “the calves would be taken away by the Queen, and sent to live on land.”

“Beached?” her mate whispered, his voice harsh, but only loud enough for her to hear, and she nodded.

“Chiyokohime didn’t understand why some calves would be sent away and others wouldn’t. The princess was curious, always wanting to know more, always wanting to explore, always so very curious about the beings she would see walking on land.”

“Like Ariel?” Vanessa interrupted her, and Amaya offered a harsh sound, not quite a laugh.

“I . . . I guess so,” she allowed, and blinked as she considered the reference her daughter had made to the classic Disney cartoon. “How does the line of that song go, Nessa?”

Vanessa giggled as she took in a deep breath. “Bright young women,” she sang in her bell-toned voice. “Sick of swimmin’. Ready to stand!”

Amaya closed her eyes as she took in a deep breath, the feel of her mate’s youki grating against hers. As much as he was trying to comfort her, he had too many questions, was too upset by the few dark things he understood, the same things that their daughter was too young to grasp. Folding her lips in over her teeth, she steadied herself and blinking rapidly when she felt the sting of tears. She hadn’t wanted Satoshi to learn any of this, had she? She had wanted him to believe in the beauty of hope. Turning her head, Amaya kissed her daughter’s temple, her breath stirring the girl’s hair.

“Mama’s a little more tired tonight than she thought,” she told the girl tucked against her side. “You get one question with each time I tell you the story, but since I’m cutting it short tonight, I’ll allow you two questions.”

Vanessa bit her lip as she rolled closer and folded her arms over her mother’s stomach as she rested her chin on her hands. Her little mouth twisted to the side as she thought about what she wanted to ask, and Amaya released a breath of amusement when the girl narrowed her eyes. She looked just like her father when he was trying to sort out a difficult problem, Amaya thought.

“How old was Chiyokohime when she first learned how to take her human form and stepped on land?” Vanessa asked, and Amaya sighed.

Technically, that was only one question, she mused. “Chiyokohime, like all the members of her pod, was taught to take her humanoid form when she was two decades old. They were taught to take this form – a humanoid form – in the middle of the sea as a lesson. It was to teach them that they can only live in their true forms in the water, and that their other form is not meant for the water. But as for land, Chiyokohime did not step on land for the first time until she turned one hundred years old.”

Vanessa’s little nose scrunched up as she gave the new information thought, her eyes narrowing to slits as she thought about what she wanted to ask next. “Why do the Kujira not live on land?”

Amaya tapped the end of her daughter’s button nose with the tip of her index finger. “I will tell you what Chiyokohime’s mother told her,” she offered, and blinked slowly as she met her daughter’s gaze. “Kujira are the most powerful of all the youkai, and if they were to live on land, their power would be too much for their humanoid forms.”

She watched as her daughter’s eyes widened in surprise and wonder, her cheeks pinking as her delight grew. The story that had been meant to inspire her dreams, had instead left the child too intrigued to sleep.

“All right you,” Satoshi said as he reached for their daughter, and lifted her up to hug her tight. “It’s time for bed.”

“But I wanna know more about Chiyokohime!” she protested, and he shook his head.

“She’s a story monster,” he proclaimed as he met Amaya’s gaze.

“You want Papa to sing to you?” Amaya asked as she stood from the bed.

“Little Mermaid?” Vanessa asked happily as she clapped her hands, staring at her father with wide eyes.

“I am not singing Little Mermaid,” he protested, and Amaya laughed as she moved to the doorway. “Damnit,” he said when she winked at him as she stepped out of the room. “Can I be the Prince this time?” she heard him ask, and laughed outright when her daughter denied his request, insisting that he sang Ariel’s parts much better.

Amaya stepped into the kitchen, welcoming the silence that surrounded her as the silver threads of moonlight filtered in through the tree outside the window to fall in haphazard designs on the wooden floor. Her eyes softened as she studied the glossy dark green leaves, turned black by the night outside, and the flowers that were a little smaller, a little pinker, a little more elegant than they should be for a magnolia tree. Turning to lift the tempered glass teapot from the stove, she carried it to the sink as she opened the top and turned on the tap, rinsing out the carafe before filling it once more with fresh water.

Satoshi had created that tree the night of Vanessa’s fourth birthday, she recalled as her eyes drifted back to the window and the tree that stood outside. As large as a hundred-year-old magnolia, but hybrid with a Sakura tree, the sight of it never ceased to bring her a sense of comfort and peace so deep that, at times, it had the power to take her breath away.

“Ness is finally down. She’s spread out in the middle of our bed like a starfish,” Satoshi announced as he stepped up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind as he let his chin fall to her shoulder. “Unless you’re secretly a fire youkai, you might want to put that pot of water on the stove,” he teased her as he let his arms fall from around her, stepping away as Amaya scrunched her nose at him before she set the teapot down on the wrought iron grating surrounding the gas burner.

“You have questions,” Amaya said, her voice devoid of emotion as she turned the dial.

She listened to the soft clicks that sounded seconds before the flame burst to life, and adjusted the temperature before moving to sit in the padded rocking chair. Satoshi didn’t speak as he stepped toward her, moving the footrest out from the rocking chair, and sat down on it to face her. He nodded once as he reached for her hands and she closed her eyes as she took hold of him, her fingers curling around his in a desperate grip. She sniffled as a choked sound broke from her, her lips trembling when Satoshi cupped her cheek in his palm, his thumb brushing against the rise of her cheekbone.

“You never would tell me what your family was like,” he reminded her gently as she opened her eyes to meet his gaze. “This is why?” he asked, and she nodded.

“When I was young, I didn’t understand. My older sister used to tell me that mother was giving away the children to families who couldn’t have them, and I believed her,” she said as she shook her head. “I actually believed that lie . . . for _so_ long.”

“Maybe you wanted to believe it,” he soothed her. “What made you see things differently?”

“Do you remember how we met?” she asked him, and he smiled as he nodded.

“I built you the fern cover,” he said, and the smile that bent her lips was bittersweet.

“The next morning, when I left, you were still sleeping. I wanted to take you with me, to let you see me in my youkai form, but you looked so peaceful I couldn’t bear to wake you,” she recalled as she nuzzled her cheek against his palm, and lifted her hand to wrap her fingers around his wrist as she took the comfort he offered her. “When I walked to the edge of the cliff overhanging the ocean, I watched as my mother beached a calf, and I watched it die. The poor thing was bleeding, and crying in pain. She must have tossed it around before bringing it die on land. I was so angry, so . . . _furious_ . . . and when I tried to do what she said we could, tried to use my youki on my own to heal it . . . “ She fell silent as she scoffed and turned her head, her vision wavering as her eyes filled with tears. “We have no power on our own,” Amaya said as she looked back at her mate. “I could only feel my youki, but it was like reaching for it through a dream. I couldn’t focus it at all. Everything she told us was a lie. All the stories, all the promises of power . . . everything. It was all a lie,” she repeated brokenly. “We can share our power to strengthen another, as I do with you, but alone?”

“Did you have power in the water, in your youkai form?” he asked her, and Amaya nodded only to shake her head as she shrugged miserably.

“In the pod, everything is shared. Our power is never used individually by itself, and if there is a way to do so, she never taught us how. We were never trained to use it, to access it on our own without another there to guide us. I can use my youki to speak with you and Nessa, communicate as I’ve taught you, as our daughter was born knowing, but anything else? I’m basically a human with claws,” she told him, her voice trembling.

“I don’t think that’s true,” he told her with a thoughtful frown as he reached for her, moved her to sit on his lap as he tucked her head against his shoulder. “All youkai have power, it’s just a matter of being trained to use it. You were never trained how to use it on your own, but I’ve watched you teach Vanessa how to use her power, how to hide and release her youki, how to move it through the ground or push it into something else. The power I’ve felt from you when you share your youki with me, when you strengthen me, it’s incredible. You can’t do that on your own?” he asked, and she shook her head as she curled closer.

“It’s not the same,” she denied him with a sigh. “When I try to do things like that alone, it . . . it’s like trying to breathe through smoke.”

“Then I’ll teach you,” he offered, and she lifted her head to meet his gaze. “We’ll practice together until you grow stronger.”

“You think it’s possible?” she asked softly, the vulnerability she felt showing in her eyes.

He nodded as he smiled softly. “I think so,” he soothed her. “Amaya, every time you’ve shared your power with me, I’ve felt how incredibly strong you are, you just lack the training to know how to use it on your own. It’s just like our first year together when I taught you how to run with me, how to leap into the trees and race across rooftops and the canopy of the forest. You weren’t able to do any of that very well at first because you weren’t used to living on land, but after time you became stronger, and now, you’re even faster than I am. Just like running, and dodging, and leaping, focusing your youki for creating barriers, or to defend or attack, is just a skill that has to be taught. Besides, what about the part of the story where Chiyokohime obtains her generational power at her coming of age? You said yourself that you were just over one hundred when we met. Certainly, you had your power by then?” he asked, and Amaya tipped her head in confusion as she frowned.

“Kujira don’t reach their age of maturity until the middle of their ninth century,” she told him, and watched his eyes widen. “It’s different for us in the ocean. Time has no meaning when you live in the water.”

“Nine hundred . . . Wait – nine hundred fifty?” he asked with disbelief, and she nodded. “But that would have meant your nine hundred-fiftieth birthday was . . .  “

“The night I got pregnant with Vanessa,” she finished his thought with a nod.

“Well, that explains a few things,” he said, and nodded toward the stove. “Your water’s boiling.”

He chuckled when she glanced at the stove only to snuggle against him once more. “I’m comfortable,” she told him, and smiled when he laughed.

“Yes, but who’s going to make the tea?” he returned, and she sighed as she closed her eyes, tucking her brow into the curve of his throat.

“Can’t you enchant a broom to do that?” she mused, and bounced when laughed heartily.

“I’m an earth youkai, Amaya, not Mickey Mouse, the Sorcerer’s Apprentice!”

 

 

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

  


  


“Thank you,” Satoshi said as he handed back the electronic signature tablet to the courier, and accepted the two-inch-thick manila document mailer.

The package was heavy, the folder itself made out of paper so thick, so refined, that it almost felt like well sanded wood. It had been passed around a bit, he thought as he turned the mailer over to see the back, and closed the front door absently behind him. The closure itself was simple, just a string wrapped around a round red plastic button. Beside the button were three different wax seals that had once held the string securely, and a fourth that was unbroken, the cotton thread held in place beneath.

The oldest seal was the most brittle, and his brows furrowed as he gently pushed the pliable wax into place to see it clearly, only to fall heavily to sit on the couch behind him. It had been close to six hundred years since the last time he had seen that seal – his father’s crest – embossed in the oat-colored wax, his father’s ceremonial color. Rubbing his hand down over his face, Satoshi studied the broken seal. The wax had dried, but was still pliable, and he knew that the seal itself was less than a month old. None of it made sense to him, as far as he knew, his father had been killed shortly after he’d left to be with Amaya.

“Your daughter just discovered that she can make that chair you cut from the fallen tree grow,” his mate said as she stepped into the room, though he was nearly deaf to her words. “Satoshi?” she called to him when he failed to respond. “What is it?” she asked when he looked up at her with wide eyes.

“It’s my father’s seal,” he said breathlessly, his fingertips smoothing over the broken wax as he stared at it through wide eyes.

“Your father?” she repeated slowly. “But I thought . . .”

“So, did I,” he said as he looked back up to meet her gaze. “The wax is still malleable . . . the seal . . . it’s less than a month old.”

“How is that possible?” Amaya asked stunned as she sat beside him. “You received notice of his death almost two hundred years ago, gained control of his accounts. We were told it had taken them centuries to find you. How could he still have been alive all this time?”

“I don’t know,” he replied as he shook his head. “Unless he was one of the ones hunting us.”

“Who are these from?” she asked as she pointed to the other two broken seals.

“That one,” he said as he touched the edge of a silver splotch of wax, the seal unfamiliar, but exceedingly formal, “I don’t know. From the looks of it though,” he said as he studied the old-style weights, “I would assume it’s a lawyer’s office.”

“This one,” Amaya said as she touched the third broken seal, “isn’t that the office of the Japanese Tai Youkai?” she asked, and he nodded as he studied the markings.

“It is,” he confirmed, and narrowed his eyes as he looked at the unbroken seal, the string held beneath the wax. “This one is the office I’ve been working through here in Missoula, to get our papers.”

“Satoshi,” Amaya called to him, and he turned to meet her gaze, his brows raised in question. “The car’s already packed, I made sure of that last night before I joined you and Vanessa. We’re ready to leave now,” she told him, and he nodded silently. “How did they find us this time?”

His lips flattened into a straight line as he released a breath through his nose. “A man – youkai – came into our offices. A transfer from London he said,” he told her, and she nodded slowly as her gaze slipped to the side. “He recognized me – or rather recognized that I’m not a true earth youkai. He started asking questions, started talking about the old stories. I should have just used my power to make him think I was pure earth youkai, but I didn’t.”

“What did you do?” she asked, watching him through narrowed eyes.

“Tried to ignore him, changed the subject any time he started asking questions. I guess that tipped him off. He seemed almost . . . giddy . . . and started saying he’d found the ‘Blended One’. He knew what I was, knew what you are, and what each of us are to our families. You are to have all of the power of your family stretching back across generations, Amaya, and you’re the only Kujira living on land. You’re as rare as they get. And I . . .”

He fell silent as he looked down, taking in a deep breath as he felt his mate’s youki wrap around him, braiding with his, as she hadn’t done since he’d put up the barrier around their house three days ago, to offer him comfort . . . offering him strength. He nodded to himself as he looked up to meet her gaze once more, knowing he had no other choice but to reveal the truth to her now, one he’d wished he would never have to share.

“Despite the ravings of my father, and the vile things he did, whether anyone else knows of them or not,” he said, sighing heavily as he pulled on the string, breaking the seal, and unwound the tie to open the mailer. “According to all the documentation my father created regarding me, I was the first-born son to a tenth-generation pureblood earth youkai father and a mother who was seventh generation pureblood river youkai, conceived during a meteor shower and given birth to under an eclipse.” He met her confused frown with a scoff and shook his head. “The only factual thing in the birth documents he created for me is the meteor shower. I am stronger than anyone else in my family – and able to do things other earth youkai can’t. It’s not normal for earth youkai to grow plants as we do, Amaya. That only comes from being able to command earth and water as one.”

“What do they want with you?” she asked, and pressed his lips together. She narrowed her eyes as she studied him. “According to the documentation?” she repeated with a frown.

“I am of my father’s blood, but I am not his son,” he answered her, the muscle in his jaw ticking. “My father’s mate is not my mother, she does not hold any blood relation to me at all.”

“I don’t understand,” she denied, shaking her head.

“Someday, once I’ve finished writing everything down in that book of ours, you will read it and understand . . . And I pray you don’t hate me for it . . . As for what they want with me . . . If I were mad enough, aisuru,” he said as he met her gaze. “I could crumble a mountain, or part the earth.”

“All earth youkai can make earthqua – “

“No,” he interrupted her. “I could part the earth. Not a quake, not something that can be repaired. Parted. Irreparably.” He studied her in silence as his gaze faltered as regret filled his heart. “Los Angeles,” he said simply. “What happened there was a . . . timid . . . example of what I could truly do.”

“L.A.?” she asked as she shook her head in confusion. “We haven’t been in L.A. for almost twenty years,” she reminded him. “There was an earthquake the day we . . . left . . . Oh n-no,” she denied as she shook her head, the color draining from her face.

“They were threatening you. They had kidnapped you,” he told her, his voice choked. “No matter how far we ran, they were still there. I didn’t have another choice.”

“All those people,” she cried as she lifted her hand to cover her mouth. “Satoshi . . . “

“It was your life or theirs,” he told her as he exhaled, the sound remorseful. “If it happened again . . . if we were in danger like that again . . . I know the cost, Amaya, but I wouldn’t hesitate. Not if it meant your life or Vanessa’s.”

“And if the Zelig finds out? Satoshi! You would be hunted!” she hissed.

“I know, and I am prepared to pay that price,” he admitted, and he held her gaze, his calmness upsetting her further. “I never wanted the innocent to be harmed. All I ever wanted was to save you, and I did. The ones who were hunting us back then are dead,” he reminded her. “There’s no one to tell the Zelig.”

“And if it happens again?” she demanded, glancing back over her shoulder to make certain their daughter wasn’t close enough to hear them.

“It won’t,” he bit out as he stood from the couch. “I _hated_ doing that. Do you know what it takes to _destroy_ like that?” he snarled as the memories flooded his mind.

“Anger –“

“ _Hate_ ,” he corrected her, and watched as her brows furrowed, as she shook her head. “Pure. Unadulterated. _Hate_. That feeling? It’s darkness, and rage, and a will – an almost . . . _desire_ – to take someone’s life. It’s wanting to feel them suffer, wanting to feel their terror, and rejoicing in it,” he told her as he shook his head and turned away from her. “I _never_ want to feel that way again. If it had been up to my father, he would have nurtured that feeling in me, used me as a weapon. And believe me, Amaya, he tried like hell to turn me into one.”

“What does that mean?” she asked him, and he shook his head, his eyes fierce.

“It means that my father tried to make me mean, any way he could, but I was strong enough to resist,” he told her, and swallowed his emotions as he quickly pasted on bright smile. “Hey, Vanessa,” he greeted as he crouched down. “What’s wrong, baby?” he asked, wincing at the strangled feeling of her youki, seeing her frown and the fear in her eyes, watching as she glanced around the room at the windows and doors.

“It’s dark outside, Papa. All around. I was playing when I felt it, and . . .” She held up the plant in her hands, the roots free from soil, the leaves and round berries pristine.

“Baby, who taught you to make this?” he asked her, struggling to keep the hard edge out of his voice as he stared at the poisonous plant.

“The man outside,” she told him hesitantly, her chin trembling as she looked at the plant in her hand. “He said it was a test, but I don’t like it. He was dark and scary, but I couldn’t feel it until he was too close to run away. He kept his face hidden, but I know him, and I don’t like him,” she professed, her voice trembling.

“You know him?” Satoshi repeated as he studied her, wrapped his youki around her when he felt her reach out to him. It felt as though she were trying to hide against him, her youki burrowing into his own. “How do you know him?”

“He’s in my dreams, when my hands hurt,” she offered up the explanation, and he shook his head in confusion. “He said you would be proud of me, but I didn’t run away like you told me to. I didn’t want to grow it, but he wouldn’t let me go until I did.”

“Where is the man?” he asked her, cupping her cheek in his hand as he tried his best to soothe her upset.

“He said he would wait for you by the river, but I don’t want you to go. It’s dark outside,” she said again, and he knew she was referring to the feel of other youkai auras and not the sky itself.

“Vanessa,” he said, and frowned when she nodded.

“Mama and I already packed for an adventure, we’re ready,” she told him, and he nodded quietly as he pushed up from the floor.

“Get Vanessa in the car and drive, I’ll be with you as soon as I can,” he commanded Amaya, tucking the thick mailer and papers into a messenger bag and slipped it over her shoulder. Amaya nodded once before lifting their daughter in her arms and turning on her heel, her shoes clicking against the floor as she ran for the garage. “I was not my father’s weapon,” he said as he sank his claws in between the slats of the hardwood floor and pried up the boards until he had created a hole big enough to stand inside. “And my daughter will not be yours,” he proclaimed as he closed his eyes, dug his claws into his hands until his blood ran free to drip onto the earth below his feet and gathered his youki.

The earth beneath his feet trembled as roots sprouted from the almost-frozen packed dirt, surrounding him in greens and browns. The television shattered as it fell to the floor, an oak tree erupting through the floor beneath the stand it sat upon as flowering vines climbed the walls. Wood flooring became nothing but splinters and broken edges as it was swallowed by shoots of bamboo, sunflowers and evergreens. He heard his mate’s voice calling out to him as a magnolia tree over took the kitchen, and a weeping fir tree burst through the wall to his left, the sound of tires growling against gravel alerting him that his mate had pulled out into the packed dirt road outside the house only seconds before the bedrooms and garage had been demolished by the conifers that only grew taller.

Satoshi stayed where he was, maintaining his balance as the roots of the oak tree in the center of the living room grew larger around than he was, emerging from the earth beneath his feet. Wood creaked and groaned, drywall breaking and crumbling as the trees grew taller and wider until the house his family had known for the past two years had been consumed by nature itself, and returned to the dense forest that surrounded it. He dropped his hands as he released his youki, the self-inflicted wounds already closed, as he fought against his own exhaustion, springing from tree to tree, following the car his mate drove. He waited for her to reach the stop sign at the end of the road before dropping to the ground by the front passenger side door, and slipped quickly inside the vehicle.

He closed his eyes as he buckled the seatbelt across his body, feeling the oppressive weight of his depleted youki and knew it wouldn’t be long before he lost consciousness. “Drive,” he commanded Amaya. “Just keep driving, and don’t stop unless you absolutely have to,” he told her, his eyes blurring as the darkness clouding the edges of his vision claimed him mercilessly.


	3. Chapter 2 "Balancing on Shadows"

AN: **_The Child of Earth and Sea_** is part of the **Purity** series and set in the current time line of Charity and Ben’s story. Rumiko Takahashi owns Inuyasha and all recognizable characters from the anime, all characters from the Purity universe belong to Sueric, I have simply been granted the honor of taking them out to play for a little while. This series tells the story of Nessa Beaumonte, from the one-shot _Heart of a Warrior,_ and has been written with the approval of, and in collaboration with the original author of the Purity Universe, Sueric.

Summary: What happens when a myth that was never supposed to be real turns out to be the one you love the most? What wouldn’t you give or do, to protect the ones dearest to your heart?

 

 

**The Child of Earth and Sea**

_A Purity Collaboration  
_

_Chapter 2_

**_“Balancing on Shadows”_**

_By_ _WhisperingWolf_

 

 

**_31 December, 2055_ **

**_Flathead National Forest_ **

**_Montana-Canada Border_ **

Vanessa’s brow furrowed as she turned her head, burrowing her face into her mother’s shoulder to escape the bitter wind that blew over her cheek. She squeezed her eyes closed tightly as she groaned softly, protesting her rise to consciousness, and felt Amaya bounce her slightly in her arms as she whispered to her, shushing her quietly as she rubbed her back. She didn’t understand why she was so cold now, her face scrunching up in displeasure and confusion as she turned her head, resting her cheek against her mother’s shoulder and opened her eyes to look out at the world around her.

She had fallen asleep to the sound of her father’s voice as he sang to her, to the red and gold ribbons of the sun rising up beyond the high window in a barn while she lay in a bed made of hay and ferns. The warmth of the giant white sheepdog—her mother had called it a Great Pyrenees—had soothed her, as she’d fallen asleep with her face buried in the animal’s fur. But now, she was high in a tree, wrapped securely in her mother’s arms, and the safety she had felt when she’d fallen asleep was all but a memory now that she was awake.

The silence around her was deafening. Even the snow that fell from the branches above where they were perched in the tree held no sound. It was as if the forest itself understood the importance of them being unheard, unseen. Every single muscle in her body was coiled, tense, as though whatever was happening was riding on these next few moments, and she didn’t know whether to be afraid or not. Vanessa blinked as she lifted her head from her mother’s shoulder, biting her lip as she looked around at the snow and ice-covered branches. Something was wrong, that much was clear to her, but she wasn’t sure exactly what it was.

_‘The bags . . . Mama’s not carrying our bags and Papa’s not singing anymore,’_ Vanessa thought as she turned in her mother’s arms, looking back behind her as she searched for him.

She opened her mouth to call for him only to be silenced when Amaya covered her mouth with her hand, the constriction of her mother’s youki around her own making it clear that she was to remain quiet. Vanessa nodded her understanding, turning back to look at her mother when the woman’s hand dropped from her mouth, her arm wrapping back around her to tighten her hold. Vanessa’s eyes widened as her breath stilled, caught somewhere between her throat and her lungs, her heart hammering wildly inside of her chest.

That was the difference, that was what had woken her and why she felt so nervous. She could feel her mother’s youki tight around her own, shielding her, restraining her, but she couldn’t feel her father’s. She pressed closer to her mother, huddling against her as she cautiously looked around, scanning the branches above and below them for her father. Her brow furrowed a moment later when she spotted him in the tree across from them almost thirty feet away. He was crouched down low on the branch, his hands braced on the branch between his bent knees and in front of his feet, his head bowed as his gaze remained fixed on the ground below.

She didn’t see the bags on him, or near him. He wasn’t carrying anything. Vanessa hugged her knitted teddy bear tighter in her arms, the furrow between her brows growing deeper as she watched him. Everything about her father was tense, statuesque. His stillness scared her, but the fear she could feel from her mother made the shadows larger, turning the forest—a place she’d always felt safe in—to something dark and ugly. She blinked when her father looked up at them suddenly, his eyes fierce, glowing, and his jaw clenched as he offered her mother a single curt nod.

Vanessa didn’t understand what his nod meant, but her mother did. In the same second that he nodded, Amaya clamped her hand down over Vanessa’s mouth, ensuring her silence as she held her close and raced from tree to tree. Vanessa’s eyes widened, tears burning behind her gaze as she watched her father fall from the tree he was in, landing silently in the snow, only to run in the opposite direction. She wanted to scream for her father, to yell for him to come with them, but any sound she made was muffled behind her mother’s hand.

Only when they were far enough away, did Amaya stop, her punishing hold loosening as she released the fierce gag she had over Vanessa’s mouth. The girl took in heavy breaths, the air misting in front of her face as she turned back to look in the direction from which they’d run. She could see the shadow of her father, his skin glowing in the dark as he ran, three other youkai chasing after him. The tears stinging her eyes fell, freezing to her cheeks and shimmering like so many crystals under the light of the half moon. She shook her head as she looked back up at her mother, too frightened to speak, as she wrapped her youki as tightly around herself as possible.

“Your father will find us,” Amaya whispered in her ear, the sharp edges of her mother’s fear making Vanessa wince as Amaya’s youki tightened around her in a stranglehold. “He’s leading the ones hunting us away, but he will find us,” she promised, her voice trembling ever so slightly. “He always does.”

“The Tai Youkai came for us?” Vanessa whimpered, looking up at her mother with wide eyes and watching as the woman shook her head.

“No. These men are different,” she denied her. “These men want to capture us. To sell us. To harm us. Youkai aren’t safe for us, my daughter. They want to take you away from your father and I, and take me from him. You must always hide from youkai. It’s only safe in the shadows.”

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

**Bangor, Maine**

**4 January, 2056**

Ammeline Jacobs looked down at the left side of her desk with a sigh, narrowing her eyes as she sat down in the chair behind her desk and set her bag on the floor. Sitting in the spot that had been cleared the day she had left for her long-overdue vacation with her mate, was a stack of files—thirty-six to be exact—with another, taller stack behind it. And another one to the right of that one. The stack in front had a red sticker bow on top of it, holding a folded note in place at its corner as though marking it as a gift.

_‘Hell of a gift,’_ her youkai-voice remarked dryly.

Ammeline released a deep sigh in agreement as she removed the sticky bow, tossing it into the trash can next to her desk before unfolding the note. Her eyes narrowed to slits as she stared at the rough handwriting—nearly cuneiform in design—and bit back a growl as she read the words a second time. The first stack of files, marked by the note, was expected to be completed by the end of the day. The two stacks behind them were expected by the end of the week.

_‘You know who wrote that note. There’s only one person who’s got writing that atrocious,’_ her youkai-voice pointed out. _‘You should return the favor.’_

Ammeline frowned as she sat back in her chair for a moment. The amusement she felt from her youkai should have been warning enough, but still asked the question. _‘How?’_

_‘Flaming bag of dog poo.’_

The sip of coffee she’d taken caught in her throat, and Ammeline sputtered as she coughed and set down the paper cup before she dropped it. _‘What is_ wrong _with you?’_ she shot back at her youkai only to be answered with laughter. _‘Freak.’_

_‘One of us has to be,’_ her youkai-voice retorted with humor before sighing. _‘And here I was hoping for an easy day. You’re going to need more coffee.’_

_‘I’m going to need more_ something _,’_ Ammeline agreed as she stared at the stacks of files with boredom and more than a little annoyance.

She still wasn’t sure how she was expected to make it through all of the student files in the first stack within the next eight hours. It was impossible, she thought, as she thumbed through each stack to count the files. Youkai stamina aside, there was only so much she could do at one time. Each file needed to have a full review done with student interviews conducted, as well as follow up with any and all teachers, and any social services personnel that may or may not be involved. Leaning back in her chair, she lifted one hand to cover her face and tipped her head back as she blew a heavy breath out between her fanned fingers.

_‘What’s frustrating you more?’_ her youkai-voice asked. _‘That you had resolved all the cases on your desk_ before _you left for that holiday vacation you and J.J. took, or that these three new stacks of case files appeared before you even got in this morning? How many are there anyway?’_

_‘Thirty-six in the pile that needs to be done today. Seventy-three in the pile behind that one, and fifty in the pile beside that one,’_ Ammeline replied after a few long moments of silence, and tipped her head back up as she released the grip she had on her temples, letting her hand fall to her lap with a frustrated sigh. _‘I counted them twice just to make sure. No, the thing that pisses me off is that Margaret freaking Thames wants these—'_ she slapped her hand down on the first pile _‘—all done by the end of the day, and these files?’_ she said as she lifted a handful from the top of the first stack before dropping them back down to the pile. _‘She’s had them for at least a month, possibly more. She kept these—intentionally—until the last moment. That woman always has an agenda and what it is this time with—'_ she looked at the tabs, focusing and the color dot used to mark the grade level, _‘—second graders, I have no idea.’_

_‘Amme,’_ her youkai said, the tone of the voice heavy with caution. _‘That name, buried somewhere in the middle, grab that one first. We’ve seen that name before.’_

Ammeline frowned as she ran the index claw of her right hand down the tabs of the first stack, until she saw the name she was hoping to never see again in the stacks of at-risk students she had been supplied with. Kathy Barker. Repeating the second grade and not because she couldn’t understand the material, the girl was smart— _damn_ smart—but she was absent too often to not be doomed to repeat the year. And the times she did come in to class? Jennifer Martin—the girl’s teacher—had reported on more than one occasion that the girl had bruises on her arms, unwashed hair, and clothing that was unclean or too small or ripped beyond repair.

“Are you kidding me?” she asked as she stared at the open file in front of her. “She came in with a broken arm this time? What the hell happened to the child services investigation that was supposed to take place?” She flipped over two more pages as she looked for the report that should have been there but wasn’t.

She didn’t wait, didn’t think as she reached for the cellphone sitting on her desk under the monitor of her computer. A text didn’t seem quite right, and calling him about this didn’t seem right, either but waiting until tonight when they were both home from work . . . She sighed heavily as she opened up her text messages.

_‘J.J. check into an eight-year-old girl for me, her name is Kathy Barker.’_

She sent the text off with a sigh and closed the file before tucking it into the fawn brown vintage messenger style bag she carried back and forth between the office and home. A smile curled her lips up at one corner as her fingers lingered over the front pocket. J.J. had bought the bag for her three years ago, giving it to her on their anniversary. It reminded her of the bag her mother used to have, back when the woman had worked as an investigative journalist for a major newspaper.

She laughed as she shook her head. These days her mother was working as a private defense lawyer specializing in criminal law. She was due for a change up soon, almost twenty years in open court and no change in appearance, she couldn’t stay much longer unless she faked aging. Ammeline’s lips twitched as she recalled the last time her mother had tried to do that with makeup, she’d gone from looking twenty-five to looking almost sixty overnight—and she still had the pictures to prove it. Her phone dinged as she straightened in her chair and she reached for the device, smiling when she saw her mate’s reply.

_‘I’m having Sharon over at PD look into it for me. Training with the boys today, breaking in a new guy. They always start out thinking they’re a hot shot.’_

She smiled, laughing softly as she replied. _‘New human teammate?’_

His reply was instant. _‘Worse. He’s a cat. A damn housecat who thinks he was somehow chosen by the gods themselves to do this job. He and I are the only two of our kind on the team, and this idiot wanted to jump without a line.’_

Ammeline sucked a sharp breath in through her teeth and shook her head. _‘Just remind him that Maine is the Zelig’s home territory, and if he makes a scene, Paul Bunyan will come after him.’_

Less than a minute later her phone rang with a video call from her mate. One tap and a few seconds later, J.J. appeared on her screen, his face split by a wide smile as he laughed.

“You gotta stop calling him that, Amme,” he told her as he shook his head. “One of these days, I’m going to run into him, and it’ll be your fault if I end up calling that cub Paul Bunyan.”

Ammeline threw her head back as she laughed. “Yeah, but if he starts walking around leading a bull . . .”

J.J. shook his head, his eyes shining with mirth as he stared at her, the sound of cat calls behind him. “I gotta go, the boys are getting restless. _And jealous!_ ” he called back over his shoulder.

Ammeline laughed when Paul Clemmons appeared in view of the camera. “We just miss seeing you down here, is all. Damn giant keeps hogging you to himself.”

“Hey, Shorty,” she greeted the man. “Break in the new guy, teach him some manners, and then I’ll have you boys over for a cookout.”

“Awww man,” he bemoaned, and looked at her mate. “We gotta teach him manners, too? All you said we had to do was house break him. Shi-i-i-i-i-i-t.”

She laughed as he smacked J.J.’s arm before moving out of line of the camera. Her mate looked back at her with a crooked grin, the length of his braid hanging down over his left shoulder. To everyone else, it appeared that he had shoulder length black hair perpetually secured at the nape of his neck with a leather band, but his concealment kept the humans from seeing just how long his hair actually was. Then again, with his cinnamon skin, high cheekbones, and dark eyes, the humans also believed him to be a rather tall Native American and not a polar bear youkai. The slate grey markings on his cheeks were hidden, too, the same marks she had spent hours tracing with her fingertips. The same double-slash marks wrapped around his hips, over the inside of his thighs, and one set directly over his heart—she loved tracing those marks with her tongue, and he never had seemed to mind.

“Yeah, I know that look,” he commented, and she smiled even as a blush rose to color her cheeks. “When I get home tonight, we need to talk.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” she said, her brow furrowing. “Where’s Ricky? Shouldn’t he be there with you guys?”

“That’s what we need to talk about,” he told her, sighing heavily as he shook his head. “Alvarez accepted a job as team leader.”

Ammeline frowned as she stared at him. “That doesn’t sound so bad. It was expected, wasn’t it? I mean, yeah, we were both surprised when they named you team leader over him, but you said Ethan had left some kind of note . . . ” she said slowly, her voice trailing off as she studied the seriousness in his expression.

“His Farewell letter. We all write one in case we don’t come back. He left a letter to the Lieutenant, that’s why I was named Team Captain and Ricky wasn’t. Ethan left another letter to me with two other letters inside—one to Gwen and one to Dobby—but those he asked me to hang onto until they’re each eighteen.” He shook his head slightly as he took in a breath. “Amme, the job Alvarez took . . . it’s in L.A.,” he told her with a sigh.

Her mouth dropped open as her eyes widened, indignation rising to color her cheeks a ruddy hue. “Are you kidding me?” she returned fiercely, the edge of a growl roughening her words. “I’ll set up a dinner with him and the pups at our house, he needs to be the one to tell Dobby and Gwen—”

“Amme—"

“—they’ll take it hard, I’m sure—”

“Ammeline—”

“—I just have to find a way to get in touch with Gwen. I don’t know if she’s back at school yet. She really shouldn’t be—”

“ _Ammeline!_ ” She fell silent as she blinked at him. “Alvarez is _gone_. I came into work this morning and got the news. He left while we were in Utah. He left a note behind for me with Shorty.”

“Dobby and Gwen?” she asked with anger and disbelief, watching as he turned his head to look behind him before returning his attention to her.

“We’ll talk tonight. I don’t want to talk about this on the phone. Amme . . . those cubs . . . “

The look in his eyes, the concern furrowing his brow, it told her everything she needed to know. “We made Ethan that promise the night he told us about Patty being pregnant with Dobby. We promised to be the spirit family for both his children. Do you remember?” she asked. “No matter what happens to him, we will be there, and we will fight for his pups, no matter what that means. If it means that we are there to take them out for a picnic or a baseball game or to go horseback riding once a week, we will do that. We fight for them, and maybe that means that in the end we adopt them legally—or we give them a safe place they know they can run to—but no matter what—”

“We fight,” he finished.

Ammeline nodded as she smiled sadly. “We fight,” she agreed. She glanced at the stack of files on her desk, turning the phone just enough for him to see them before turning it back to meet his gaze in the camera. “I doubt I’ll be home before eight and I may be bringing some of these home with me.”

“Thai Flower?” he asked, naming one of the take-out places they frequented.

“Mmmm . . . “ She twisted her lips to the side as she narrowed her eyes. “I kind of want tacos.”

“Woman, are you going to make me cook?” he asked. He laughed when she responded with a wide smile. “All right. I’ll pick up some ground bison at the store on my way home. You sure are demanding,” he teased her.

“And you love me for it,” she teased back laughing when he did. Her smile fell away slowly as her eyes widened at the scene playing out behind her mate. “Ummm . . . J.J. . . . You need to handle that,” she said, watching as the dark blond cat youkai charged at Shorty with his shoulder down in order to throw him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and stand tall, only to then spin in a slow bouncing circle. “That’s not going to end well.”

“Son of a bi—”  

Ammeline shook her head as she laughed when the call dropped, the text message conversation with J.J. reappearing on her screen. Closing out of the application, she rolled her eyes. That cat was either going to end up getting himself booted off the team or forcing J.J. into a dominance battle. She’d seen him do the same thing only once before with a human who simply wouldn’t back down and kept challenging his authority. He had gotten fed up enough that he had grabbed the guy by the front of his shirt, lifted him up, and body slammed him to the ground. That man was Shorty, and he and J.J. had been thick as thieves ever since. Men, she thought as she shook her head and reached for her glasses, she would never understand them.

_‘Psst!’_

Pale sky-blue eyes narrowed from behind the tint of amber lenses. _‘Did you just ‘psst’ me?’_

_‘Yes.’_

_‘. . . Why?’_

_‘Because. . . ‘_

_‘. . . Because why?’_

Rolling her eyes when her youkai remained silent, Ammeline reached up a slender pale hand to remove the delicate rectangular frames. The glasses she wore held a mild prescription for reading, but more importantly, the amber-tinted lenses were specifically engineered to eliminate the blue light from the computer screens she worked at most often. They really did come in handy as of late, she thought, especially since she was splitting her time between her counseling duties here at the school, as well as finishing her doctorate thesis work for both Developmental and Behavioral Psychology, and Education in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Maine Online.

She still wasn’t sure if she wanted to continue on here at the school once her degrees were finished, or if she wanted to join a private practice somewhere. All she knew for certain was that she wanted to help kids, she thought as she slipped the glasses back on and turned her attention back to the computer screen in front of her. In truth, she didn’t even need the education studies she’d taken, those had happened more out of her own curiosity than anything else.

For now, though, she thought as she opened the deep drawer on the bottom right side of her desk and withdrew the files from within the thick hanging folder, she had at least fifty more student files to go through from various teachers in order to finish the behavioral reports and college recommendation letters for the senior class that would be graduating this year. It was the only thing she had left over from the work she had before she had left for vacation, and all of those had to be completed before she could even think about getting started on the new stack for the second graders that were needed by the end of the day.

And as much as it would help to have another student counselor on staff, she was glad not to. After the two she had worked with almost five years ago—before they’d been laid off due to budget cuts—she had learned not to trust anyone in the school except for herself as far as the students were concerned. Too many of the at-risk students she had worked with before had fallen through the cracks because of the lack of follow through from the other staff members. She was better able to accept having to do the work of three people when she was the only one there to do it.

_‘Psst!’_

_‘Seriously?’_ Ammeline replied as she looked away from the desk in front of her that was becoming more crowded by the moment. _‘I have work to do.’_

_‘She’s lingering!’_ her youkai hissed at her.

_‘You’re inside my head. Why in the hell are you whispering?’_

_‘Because_ she’s _out there, and I, for one, do not like her.’_

Ammeline sighed. The _she_ in question was her boss—or at least one of them, anyway—Margaret Thames, Vice Principal of Student Affairs. The woman really wasn’t needed, but she’d been hired on under the old principal before he’d retired last year, and Janet Fields, the new principal, hadn’t seen a reason to let her go or change the woman’s job. Not that she really did anything if it didn’t directly benefit herself, Ammeline thought. Add on top of that, there wasn’t one person in the school, aside from Margaret herself, who seemed to know what—exactly—her job was.

That woman was nothing if not a walking, talking agenda. Nearing sixty years old, Margaret Thames still dressed and acted as though she were in her twenties, dying her hair and adorning herself with makeup and accessories that were supposed to be the latest in the young adult fashions. It wouldn’t have been an issue, if she were youkai, but she wasn’t. Mrs. Thames was human, and a rather oblivious one at that. It made it easy enough to hide from her, at least. All she had to do was sit at her desk with the lamp off, the door and blinds closed, and more often than not, the woman didn’t even bother to knock. What was that old saying? Be grateful for small favors? Something like that, she thought, and shook her head as she took in a deep steadying breath.

_‘You should introduce her to Patty. Pretty sure they’d be instant friends,’_ her youkai said ruefully.

_‘Ugh, no. That’s the last thing that needs to happen.’_ Ammeline slouched down in her chair as she dropped her cheek to her fist. _‘You think I could get away with going home early?’_

_‘Seven hours early? I doubt it,_ ’ her youkai returned, _‘_ If _you turned off your lamp, you could pretend not to be here. It’s not like they can sense you.’_

Ammeline snorted at the advice of her youkai-voice, wondering just how easy it might be to get away with doing just that. Aside from herself, there was only one other youkai teacher on staff—a jackal—and he was in the physical education department. He was also the one person in the school who never bothered telling her about a student he suspected was being abused, instead choosing to slip her a note with a name on it and the simple promise that he’d taken care of it.

She narrowed her eyes as she gave serious consideration to the idea of making people think she wasn’t here. The humans milling about in the hallway and offices outside didn’t have the sharpened senses to tell if she was here by the thickness of her scent in the room, or the feel of her youki. All she really had to do was reach over to the small lamp sitting on the right corner of her desk and turn the light off. One. Little. Switch.

_‘Do it. You know you want to.’_

_‘You’re not helping,’_ Ammeline replied, narrowing her eyes as an errant lock of curly platinum-blonde hair fell over her eye.

_‘I’m helping plenty,’_ her youkai-voice denied her as she tucked the hair behind her ear. _‘Besides, it is training day, after all. We could go watch J.J. work out with the boys . . . watch him break in the new guy. That cat did look rather nice to watch even if he is a total idiot.’_

_‘We’re mated. Remember? To J.J. Handsome guy, polar-bear youkai,’_ she retorted dryly.

_‘Yeah yeah yeah. Mated doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate a little eye candy. It just means we can’t go licking said eye candy. Besides, J.J.’s much tastier than any damn cat would be.’_

_‘Pervert.’_

_‘You know that even in this weather, he usually takes his shirt off. Polar bears do stay warmer in the cold.’_

_‘Not._ Help _ing!’_

_‘I bet he’s got sweat dripping down his chest right now. Tiny little drops rolling down over his—’_

Ammeline couldn’t suppress the sigh of relief that came as a result of the quick triple knock on her office door. The sound may have been timid, but it interrupted whatever her youkai-voice intended to say next and for that she was grateful. Shaking her head as she lifted her hands to cover her heated cheeks, blood pooling beneath her skin at the equal sense of embarrassment and arousal, she took in a deep breath only to release it in a heavy exhalation. Death by youkai-voice, she thought with a roll of her eyes and grinned at the sound her youkai’s offended snort.

“Come in!” she called out when the knock sounded again, and sat back in her chair, her brows furrowing when the senior class student volunteer walked into her office. “Don’t tell me—you’ve got more files for me?”

Tammy shook her head as she frowned, pushing her mousey brown hair behind her rounded ear as she stepped up to the desk. “Mrs. Thames asked me to give you this for review,” she said as she handed the micro-USB flash drive to Ammeline. “She asked that you let her know as soon as you were done watching it.”

“Tammy,” Ammeline called to her, able to feel the discomfort in the girl’s aura, and nodded to her office door. “Close the door and come sit down,” she instructed, her brow furrowing as she watched the teenager.

There was something about the flash drive that was clearly upsetting to her, but what that something was, she wasn’t sure. It wasn’t her imagination, she thought as she watched the girl pause with her hand on the door before finally pushing the heavy wood closed. The beat of her heart increased, and Ammeline could smell the rise of adrenaline. The girl wanted to leave, but there was something more . . . something that seemed to both anger and sadden her.

“Do you know something about what I’ll find on here?” she asked once the girl returned to the desk and sat down in the visitor’s chair on the right.

Tammy’s shoulders moved as she drew in a deep breath, releasing it a moment later in a heavy exhalation. She ducked her head as she nodded, toying with the hair that hung down a few inches below her shoulders. Over and over, Tammy flicked and turned the lock of hair between her fingers, the natural curl at the end of her hair only helping to make the nervous hair-twirl happen that much faster.

“Tammy?”

“People are saying stuff!” she blurted out irritably, and Ammeline narrowed her eyes. “And not just the students, either. I’ve heard some of the teachers say things.”

Ammeline shook her head. “Say things about what? And to whom?”

Tammy shrugged. “To each other mostly, but some have said stuff directly to her, and it’s not right!”

“Tammy, I can’t help if I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she told the girl and listened to her sigh.

“I didn’t watch that tape,” she said, nodding to the flash drive on the desk, “but I didn’t have to. I was there to see it all happen. She told him to stop, warned him to stop running his mouth, but he wouldn’t. And not one of the teachers tried to help, either. They didn’t do _anything_ , and no one could expect her to just let it go! That isn’t fair! No one could just let something like _that_ go.”

Ammeline shook her head as she reached across the desk, tapping her knuckles against the hard wood to get the girl’s attention. “Tammy.” She waited for the girl to meet her gaze before she continued. “I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She watched as the girl’s shoulders fell in a heavy silent sigh. It looked as though the student sitting in front of her had been defeated by whatever she had witnessed. Ammeline pulled her hand back as she leaned against the chair behind her, the furrow between her brows deepening as she narrowed her eyes. This was more than just the normal rumors that would spread around the halls, more than just someone stealing another girl’s boyfriend, or so-and-so getting into a fight. Whatever this was had enough power behind it that Ammeline could even feel her youkai bracing for impact.

“They’re saying terrible things,” Tammy began slowly, her quiet voice barely able to be heard and Ammeline was certain that if it wasn’t for her youkai senses, she’d never have heard it at all. “. . .About Captain Dobson.” Ammeline pressed her lips into a thin line as she reminded herself to be patient, that the girl in front of her wasn’t done yet. “The boy on that video—Jackson Pruitt—he kept saying that Captain Dobson was being careless, that his dad said that he had no business being up there anyway and that . . . and that . . . Captain Dobson . . . deserved to fall.”

Ammeline sucked in a sharp breath as she stared at Tammy through wide eyes. It took effort to bite back the growl building inside of her, the maternal rage she felt that was only a hair’s breadth from coming out, whether she wanted it to or not. She had watched over Gwen enough as a baby and toddler that it was hard not to think of the girl as one of her own. Patricia Dobson hadn’t even been halfway interested in her own daughter until Gwen was four and a half years old—old enough that the woman believed the child could take care of herself. Ammeline still believed that the only reason Patricia began showing any interest in her daughter at all was because the woman had seen her and Ammeline together in the park. To this day, Patricia still believed Ammeline had been having an affair with her husband, Ethan.

“. . . I just can’t believe that he kept saying those things to her, that he was so—so—so— _happy_ about it,” Tammy continued, shaking her head as she stood up, her hands fisted at her sides as she turned her back to Ammeline. “She just lost her dad and Jackson wouldn’t _shut up_! He just kept going on and on and on and I very nearly popped him myself!” she declared as she whirled back around to face the woman behind the desk.

Ammeline stared in silence as she studied the girl. It couldn’t be. “. . . Tammy, the girl you’re talking about—the one Jackson Pruitt was taunting is—"

“Gwen Dobson,” the student confirmed with a nod. “She’s in Mrs. Thames’ office now. I don’t even know why she’s at school. She shouldn’t be here. Hell, if it were my dad who died . . . “ She shook her head as she looked toward the window behind Ammeline before turning her eyes back to meet the counselor’s gaze. “I don’t even know how she’s keeping it together right now. I know I wouldn’t be.”

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

**  
**

The carpet in the room was new. There were no patches of threadbare areas, no tears or cuts, no stains from spilled coffee or tea or soda. Her brow furrowed as she turned her head, looked toward the door that was open only a few inches, just enough to allow the woman’s words to carry outside the office. Gwen didn’t care and wasn’t sure she ever had to begin with. She was long past listening to her at all, and let her mind wander to the mundane, if only to keep her sanity.

They didn’t match, she thought as she narrowed her eyes. There was a clear line in the carpet that cut across the middle of the partially open doorway. On one side—the side that was the main office—the carpet was ratty, short, threadbare, and that kind of blue that was made up of so many different shades as though whoever had invented it thought it would hide stains, or not get stained at all. What a lie that was. The stains were impossible to hide.

The carpet in Mrs. Thames’ office? It stood taller than the other, she wasn’t sure by how much, though. Maybe a quarter inch, maybe a half, but more to the point, it was plush and it was white. Gwen turned her gaze up, looked at the desks out in the main office. They were simple constructs of cheap metal, the kind that could be purchased at any office discount store for less than forty bucks. The one closest to her had a notable dent in the leg that looked as though it was one good kick away from breaking. Turning her head back to look at Mrs. Thames’ desk, her somewhat bored gaze narrowing as she tightened her jaw.

Heavy thick wood, stained a reddish brown, decorative scrolls carved into the front. It was hand done, too. She knew the difference, having spent enough time with her father on his days off when he took to wood carving and building in their garage at home. He had taught her how to use the tools, sand and carve the wood, nail and glue pieces together, everything he did he had taught her to do. She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t worked with him, carving wood and building things from it. He had called the hobby “his chair”, telling her that working with his hands was something that allowed him to find his center again, especially after a bad day.

If she closed her eyes, she could smell the sawdust from the oak and pine, the scents of wood varnish and glue. Her fingers brushed against her palms as she felt the ghosts of the wood in her hands, the heaviness of the knife he’d taught her to whittle with. She stilled as the sound of her father’s voice echoed in her mind only to fade away once more. The memories she held of him hurt so much that she wanted to scream at times, wanted to rage at the world and hit things, but those were emotions that she didn’t get the luxury of expressing. Being here at school was her time away, her time to be Gwen Dobson, the student.

But when she left and before she arrived, she was both big sister and mother. She was the one who would have to hold her brother when he woke up crying in the night, the one who would have to read to him until he fell asleep, and remind him to put his toys away when he was done playing with them. And just as she knew that she was grateful to have something else to focus on when she was here at school, she knew that as soon as the last bell rang, her responsibilities would resume.

It was the little things that seemed to get to her the most. Things like knowing that when she left school today, she would have to stop by the market on the way home to pick up Cheerios and those little banana-flavored Gerber puff snacks her brother liked because he was almost out. It was the knowledge that the garage she used to take refuge in in the few hours her brother would finally settle down to sleep at night had been emptied and laid bare—her father’s wooden carvings and creations sold off, and the projects still in process burned to ashes in their backyard. And it was the knowledge that when she got home, she would have to collect her brother from Mrs. Danielsen next door, because his own mother couldn’t be bothered with him and Gwen couldn’t take him to school. He wasn’t old enough to fend for himself, and even if he was, there wasn’t anyone at home to watch him.

The kindly old Norwegian woman who had lost her husband long before Gwen or her brother were ever born had become a surrogate grandmother to her. Mrs. Danielsen barely spoke English, but she’d been teaching Gwen to speak Norwegian since she was old enough to talk. It seemed like such a small thing, but it meant more to her than she could explain. There was an unmistakable pride Gwen felt in being able to converse and both read and write the language fluently. It allowed her a little leeway in being able to speak her mind without anyone really knowing what she was saying—aside from Mrs. Danielsen, that was.

“ _Miss Dobson!_ ”

Gwen sighed as she turned her gaze back to the woman behind the desk and blinked at her in the following silence.

“Are you even listening to me?” Mrs. Thames demanded.

“No.” Gwen sat back in the chair and crossed her arms over her chest. “The moment you told me that I was being _unfair_ to that . . . _drittsekk_ ,” she offered the Norwegian word knowing she would have been reprimanded for calling the boy a bastard in English, “was the moment I stopped listening to you.”

She watched the woman’s complexion turn ruddy as her eyes widened. Mrs. Thames’ lips pursed and trembled, before she stood and slammed her hands down on the desktop. “How _dare you_ speak to me like that! You are a child! You—"

“A child? Really?” Gwen countered as she stared the woman down, feeling as much disdain for her as she felt for her own mother. “I’m going to give you a description, and _you_ tell _me_ what I’m describing. This person regularly wakes up between midnight and three AM to comfort a crying toddler. Walks through the house with that same crying toddler until they’ve calmed down enough to sleep, and sometimes, that toddler doesn’t calm before this person has to get up to go about their day. This same person has to clean the house, do the laundry, clean up after and take care of that toddler, cook the meals, do the dishes, sweep and mop the floors, even buy the occasional groceries. What would this person be?”

She watched Mrs. Thames scoff as she removed her narrow-lens wire-rimmed oval glasses, tossing them on the desk as she sat back down in her padded leather chair. Gwen arched her brow as she waited for her to reply, watching the woman tug at the cuffs of her pale-pink suit, a suit that looked as though it had been purchased at Forever21, or someplace similar. Mrs. Thames was closing in on sixty, a fact she loved to throw out with a comment of how good she looked for her age when she would stand next to some of the younger teachers who looked older than she did. Botox and hair dye—that’s what Gwen had overheard one of the office ladies say. No one respected her, that much was clear to everyone, including the student body.

“An adult,” Mrs. Thames said after almost two full minutes of silence.

Gwen offered a curt nod before standing up as she lifted her school bag to her shoulder and walking toward the open door.

“Sit back down!”

“No,” Gwen denied, her hand on the doorknob. “According to your own words . . . _I_. _Am_. An adult,” she said stiffly. “That person I was describing is _me_."

She didn’t wait for the woman to say anything else as she left the office, adjusting her backpack on her left shoulder as she went. She shook her head when she heard Mrs. Thames’ shrill yell behind her, the woman’s pronouncement that her actions only added to the consequences that she was already facing. Gwen shook her head as she stopped, closing her eyes when she heard the sound of Mrs. Jacobs’ voice calling out to her from down the hall in front of her, and turned to walk in the direction of the woman’s office. Quite possibly the only person in the school that she could stand, aside from the redhead who worked in the library, the school counselor was the only one aside from her father and J.J. that she really trusted.

“Come in and close the door,” Ammeline instructed as Gwen neared her office door.

She’d always insisted that the students call her by her first name, but she’d never been able to, Gwen thought. It wasn’t that she had any problem with calling her Ammeline but doing so made her feel . . . vulnerable. It didn’t help that Ammeline and her husband were friends of her father’s, or that they had known her since she was a newborn, Gwen thought. She couldn’t count the number of times she had spent over at the Jacobs’ house when her father and J.J. had been out on rescues together, or simply because Ammeline had wanted to go to the country fair or out to the stables and had taken her and Dobby along for the fun of it.

Everything felt so different now that her father was gone, and there were times that she found herself imagining— _wishing_ —that Ammeline was her mother instead of the woman who avoided any and all contact with her, if at all possible. She’d done her best to close her mind off to those thoughts, though. The vulnerability she felt from that particular fantasy was suffocating.

“How do you always know?” Gwen asked, watching as the woman tucked her pale blonde hair behind her ear as she smiled.

“Call it intuition,” Ammeline replied with a smile. “Take a seat and just relax a minute.”

Gwen bit her bottom lip as she nodded, stepping further into the office as she closed the door quietly behind her. The sounds from the office outside were greatly muffled—almost muted—the separation offering her a temporary sanctuary. Closing her eyes as she breathed in, the warm scents of sandalwood and cedar filled her nose. A hint of smoke caught her attention and she turned her head as she opened her eyes, staring at the small misshapen clay dish sitting on the windowsill behind the desk.

“I didn’t know you still had that,” Gwen said breathlessly as she fell to sit heavily on the couch.

Ammeline smiled as she pushed her chair back from desk and stood, moving around the desk to join Gwen on the couch. “Of course, I kept it,” she said softly. “You made it for me, didn’t you?” she asked in return, and the girl sniffled as she nodded.

“I was three,” Gwen said as she laughed softly, staring at her hands as she swallowed thickly. “I didn’t even know what I was doing with it, I just liked squishing the clay.”

Ammeline laughed softly in return as she nodded, reaching out to rest her hand over Gwen’s shoulder. “Gwen, what are you doing here? Why are you at school?”

Gwen opened her mouth to respond, her brow furrowing as her mind grew silent, her words failing her. What was she supposed to say? That her mother had forbade her from missing even one day at school, telling her that there was nothing for her to cry about and that she would “absolutely not” tolerate her being an embarrassment? Perhaps instead, she was meant to tell her that she was using school as a buffer, a useless distraction to keep her mind focused on something else so that the grief that seemed to be suffocating her every waking moment was held back just enough to let her breathe for a few minutes each day.

Gwen shook her head as she felt tears stinging behind her eyes and tingling in her nose. She squeezed her eyes closed, but the tears came anyway, seeping out between her lashes as she gasped, trying to control her emotions only to find that her grief refused to be subjugated any longer. The bag that still hung from her shoulder, slipped down her arm to land with a heavy thump on the floor beside her foot, a choked whimper breaking from within her as she felt her body begin to tremble with the force of emotions that were too strong to be understood. She lifted her hands to cover her face, steepling her fingers over her nose and mouth as she felt Ammeline’s arms close around her, pulling her closer to hold her tight as she whispered to her.

She hadn’t cried since the day her father’s team had come to her house to notify her of her father’s death. She hadn’t been able to feel anything at all since that day except for the incessant nothingness that surrounded her, choked her, robbing her of her sleep and her sanity. But now, as she sat here in Ammeline’s office with the woman’s arms wrapped around her, she felt herself break. Everything she thought she knew was shattering around her like glass, and she didn’t know how to stay strong anymore.

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

**  
**

Ammeline sighed as she wrapped her arms around Gwen, holding the girl close as she sobbed and trembled in her arms, her tears soaking through her blouse. She was beyond angry that Gwen was here at school at all, knowing that the girl had the option and the right to be out of school for at least another two weeks, since school holidays didn’t count toward bereavement time—that particular school code having been changed almost forty years ago. She sighed, her breath ruffling Gwen’s hair as she rubbed the girl’s back with one hand and reached for the cellphone in her pants pocket with the other.

Tapping a few buttons on the screen as she lifted the phone in front of her face, she met her mate’s gaze when his face appeared on the screen. “Hey,” she greeted him softly, watching as his gaze shifted slightly to the side. “Come get her?” she asked and watched as he nodded.

“I’ll be down there in about twenty minutes,” he assured her, and she offered him bittersweet smile in return.

Ammeline released a heavy breath as she lowered the phone when the short video call ended, turning her attention to Gwen when the girl grew quiet. She watched as Gwen pulled back slowly, wiping her eyes as she looked at the floor, sniffling back her tears. She was nervous and scared and so many other things that shifted through her aura, coloring her scent, but grief remained the strongest.

“Is Dobby over at your neighbor’s house?” Ammeline asked and watched as Gwen nodded in return. “Okay.” She reached out, catching the girl’s chin with a crooked finger, turning her face to meet her gaze. “J.J.’s coming to pick you up, he’ll stop by Mrs. Danielsen’s house to pick up Dobby after, and then you two will be staying with us, at least for tonight. I’ll call your mom and smooth—"

“Don’t bother,” Gwen interrupted her with a derisive scoff. She shook her head as she released a heavy sigh. “She’s in New York . . . I don’t know where, exactly. She said she got a job and needed to take it now that Dad had run off.”

“Run. Off?” Ammeline asked dumbfounded, only barely suppressing the growl building low in her throat. “. . . Wait. New York?” She shook her head as she tried to wrap her mind around what she was hearing. “When did she leave?”

“Thursday,” Gwen responded with a shrug.

“Thursday?” she repeated. “That means that the reason she _wasn’t_ at your father’s memorial has nothing to do with grief and everything to do with her _not_ being in the state?” She closed her eyes as she took in a steadying breath before meeting the girl’s gaze once more. “It’s Tuesday. When do you expect her home?” she asked, her anger burning hotter.

_‘Amme,’_ her youkai-voice cautioned her. _‘She can feel your anger. Stop scaring the pup.’_

It took effort to force her rage back, to remind herself of the girl sitting next to her on the couch and the upset she was clearly feeling. Closing her eyes as she took in a deep breath, Ammeline nodded to herself as she rested her hand on Gwen’s shoulder.

“You and Dobby will stay with us until your mother returns. Did she say anything before she left?” she asked.

Gwen’s shoulders lifted slowly only to fall with a heavy sigh. “She just said that she was glad she had always worked to keep her looks and is hoping to get the campaign. She left me an envelope with cash in it to take care of Dobby.”

Ammeline clenched her jaw as she nodded and looked away. Patricia Dobson had never once been shy about saying that she had been a high-paid model in New York before getting married. She had never been billboard famous—not that Ammeline was aware of—but Patricia had done more than a few magazine spreads, often telling the story of what it felt like to be in the camera’s eye. The only reason she had stopped modeling was because she had gotten pregnant—coincidentally, it was the same reason she gave for getting married and moving to Maine. Both were lies. She and J.J. had known Ethan before he’d ever met Patricia, and the couple had been married close to five years _before_ the woman had gotten pregnant with Gwen.

In many ways, she hated the girl’s mother. Patricia had become pregnant and given birth to the children she had only as a ploy to keep Ethan from divorcing her. And when she had become jealous and insane with the thought that Ammeline and Ethan had been having an affair, she hadn’t been shy about throwing it in her face—her belief that Ammeline was unable to have children of her own. It was a truth that Ammeline had never repeated out loud—not to anyone. Not to her mate, or Ethan, and certainly not to Gwen, even though she knew that the girl was well aware of it. Casting those thoughts aside, Ammeline offered Gwen a comforting smile as she rubbed her upper arms and nodded to the couch they sat on.

“Try to relax,” she told the girl. “Take a nap, if you like. I don’t know what Mrs. Thames has planned as far as disciplinary action goes, but I watched the tape of that fight, and whether she likes it or not, you told Jackson Pruitt to stop, you warned him twice, and only after that did you strike him, and only once. It’s still technically classified as fighting, but knowing her, she won’t let it go with just a warning. She could decide on detention.”

“Or?” Gwen asked.

“Or,” Ammeline repeated and sighed. “She could suspend you from school for up to a week. I know—" she said quickly, raising her hand to calm the girl’s outrage before she could speak. “I know he provoked you, and I know you warned him, and I will argue that, but ultimately, the decision lies with her.” Gwen nodded silently as her gaze fell to the floor. “Okay,” Ammeline said as she stood from the couch. “I’m going to go meet with her, you stay here until J.J. comes.”

“Okay,” Gwen agreed as she reached for her bag. “I have homework.”

Ammeline pressed her lips together into a thin line as she held her hand over the handle of her office door. Of course, the girl would turn to her homework instead of taking her advice to just relax. Gwen Dobson had stopped being a child the minute she was thrust into the role of being a mother to her younger brother. Ammeline just hoped that one day, Gwen would learn how to smile again, and that someone would teach her what it meant to do something just for the fun of doing it.

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

**  
**

**_7 January, 2056_ **

**_On the edges of the Banff National Park near Calgary_ **

Dirt and dust covered the floor, broken pieces of what once had been a small table and two chairs scattered across the hardwood floor. Maybe it was used for chess, she thought as her eyes lingered on the shaped pieces of porcelain lying near the hearth. Her attention wavered, her gaze moving to the right as her eyes drifted across the floor and up to the covered circle in the wall. Shards of stained glass were scattered across the floor near the wall, the empty wrought iron frame of the window that was still in place had been boarded up long ago with a piece of plywood. The smell of old stone and soot, mildew and animals clung to this place, creating a strange sense of safety, as if the house itself had been hidden from the world.

The house had been built at least a century and a half ago, based on the design of it. The modest brick and stone Victorian had been abandoned almost as long, vines covering the walls outside, and birds’ nests clogging the chimney. The trees surrounding the house—pines and willows and aspen—that she was certain had once been carefully maintained, were now overgrown, branches reaching out to one another and twisting together to hide the house from view. Nature was trying to hide it, to reclaim it, but still the house held together, standing proud in the overgrowth and acting as a safe harbor for she and her daughter.

Amaya closed her eyes as she scrubbed her hands down over her face, releasing a heavy tired sigh as she let her hands fall to her lap and sat back against the old brick wall behind her. Vanessa was sleeping on the floor beside her, the child curled into a ball with her arms wrapped around the knitted bear tucked against her chest. She should have at least brought the bag with the blankets in it but there hadn’t been time, Amaya thought as she tipped her head back and looked up at the ceiling above her.

Seven days ago, Satoshi had told her to take their daughter and run north while he led those following them in the opposite direction. She didn’t know if they had been sent by the gyrfalcon youkai who’d been hunting them the longest, or if they were just independent brokers—youkai following them with the sole intent of capturing and selling them to the highest bidder. The only thing she knew for certain was that she hadn’t seen Satoshi since that night.

This wasn’t the first time she and her mate been separated when they’d been forced to run, nor was it the first time it had happened since Vanessa was born. The standing agreement had always been the same: she would find a safe place—a cave or abandoned house or building or even a tree that provided ample shelter—and wait for him. He always found her, always came to her, every single time. Sometimes, they were separated for only a day or two, but sometimes—and she feared this would be one of those times—they would be apart for weeks.

Amaya looked down next to her when she heard Vanessa’s soft groan, watching as her daughter pulled her knees in closer to her chest as she slept, tightening her arms around the bear she held. It wasn’t hard to guess that the girl was cold, youkai blood aside, the winter here was brutal, and Vanessa didn’t have the same tolerance to the cold that she did. Neither Satoshi nor Vanessa could handle the cold as well as she could, Amaya thought as she shrugged out of her knit sweater and laid the garment over her daughter like a blanket. Being Kujira made her far more resistant to the cold than they were, but even she had her limits, and she was quickly reaching it.

As cold as it was, though, she didn’t dare light a fire. There was no telling who might see the light or smoke from it, or what debris could be blocking the chimney, that would only serve to clog the flu and cause the smoke to fill the house instead. Dragging a hand down over her face, Amaya leaned her head back against the wall behind her, closing her eyes as she gave into the exhaustion that weighed her down. Within moments, she was asleep, the last fleeting thought in her mind being the comfort of knowing that she was still connected to her mate and the wishful hope of believing she could feel the edges of her mate’s youki brushing against her own.

She was still asleep when the front door opened slowly almost half an hour later, the hinges squeaking softly with the movement. A man covered in snow and particles of ice slipped inside the house, bracing his weight against the door as he shut out the winter wind. He turned the tarnished deadbolt, locking it in place, and hoping that it would hold up against the storm building outside. This house was sturdy, he thought, the structure standing tall with all the walls and the roof still intact.

He turned around as he lifted the strap of the bag higher on his left shoulder, his lips turning up in a small grin when he caught sight of his family sleeping against the wall beneath the mantel. Releasing a soft sigh as he stepped closer to them, he quietly lowered the bags he carried to the floor and unzipped the one on the right, withdrawing the bear pelt from within. Smoothing out the pelt on the floor with the fur side up, he carefully reached out for his daughter, moving the sleeping girl to lie on top of it before covering her with the quilt her mother had stitched for her.

She groaned softly, moving just a bit, but didn’t wake as she curled up in the makeshift bed. Satoshi braced his hands on the floor on either side of her as he leaned down to kiss her temple. “Sorry I’m late, Ness,” he whispered, braiding his youki around hers as he moved back.

Taking the giant quilt from the bottom of the bag, he laid it out on the floor next to Vanessa before standing slowly and moving to where Amaya sat sleeping against the wall. His mate whimpered softly when he lifted her in his arms, her eyes fluttering though she never woke. He whispered to her as he carried her to the blanket, laying her down before stepping back to remove his snow-covered clothing, and laid down beside her as he felt her youki wrap around his.

He pulled the quilt over them both as he wrapped Amaya in his arms, kissing her temple as he pulled her back against his chest. His gaze softened, his lips curling up in a pouting smile when she turned in his arms, nuzzling her cheek against his chest as she pillowed her head on his shoulder. Satoshi kissed her brow as he smoothed his hand down over her hair when she whispered his name in her sleep and chuckled softly when Vanessa moved from her bed to crawl in between them, not once bothering to open her eyes. She whimpered when she was close enough to paw at the blanket, and he smiled as he lifted the edge of the quilt to invite her closer, watching his daughter as she snuggled on top of him before falling back to sleep seconds later, as he lowered the blanket to cover her. He knew they would only be able to stay here another few days, a week if they were lucky, but for now, he was just happy to be back with his family. For just a few hours, he could lie down and rest, hold his family in his arms while he left the monsters chasing them to the darkness of his dreams.

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

AN: Amaya’s nickname of “May” that her mate and youkai-voice occasionally use is pronounced “My” as it is simply the middle of her name.

 


	4. Chapter 3 - "Future Imperfect"

AN: **_The Child of Earth and Sea_** is part of the **Purity** series and set in the current time line of Charity and Ben’s story. Rumiko Takahashi owns Inuyasha and all recognizable characters from the anime, all characters from the Purity universe belong to Sueric, I have simply been granted the honor of taking them out to play for a little while. This series tells the story of Nessa Beaumonte, from the one-shot _Heart of a Warrior,_ and has been written with the approval of, and in collaboration with the original author of the Purity Universe, Sueric.

Summary: What happens when a myth that was never supposed to be real turns out to be the one you love the most? What wouldn’t you give or do, to protect the ones dearest to your heart?

 

**The Child of Earth and Sea**

_A Purity Collaboration_

_Chapter 3_

**_“Future Imperfect"_ **

_By_ _WhisperingWolf_

 

 

 

**_Valentine’s Day, 2056_ **

**_Eagle Lake Overlook, Park Loop Road_ **

**_Bar Harbor, Maine_ **

_J.J. frowned as he stood back, holding the door open to let Ethan pass through into the house. It was their first day off in over a month, the storms that had been passing over the northeastern seaboard wreaking havoc up and down the coast. The last thing J.J. had expected was for their team leader—and his best friend—to show up at two-thirty in the morning._

_“You looked better when I dropped you off in front of your house a few hours ago,” J.J. commented as he shut the door and turned to look back over his shoulder at Ethan._

_“I don’t know what to do, Jordan.”_

_J.J.’s brows shot up high on his forehead as he stared at his friend. He could count on one hand the number of times Ethan had ever used his full name and not his nickname. The fact that his friend had yet to sit down, and was instead pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace, was yet another reason for him to be worried._

_“I don’t wear salmon,” Ethan said as he stopped pacing. He shook his head as he put his hands on his hips, staring down at the floor for a moment longer before he met J.J.’s gaze.  “It always just looked like pink to me, and I never liked it. Thanks to my family, I tan—almost to your color—in the summer and get this weird yellow-brown-tan in the winter.”_

_“Almond,” Ammeline said as she stepped into the room, wrapping her silk robe around herself and tied it into place. “The color you’re looking for to describe your complexion in the winter is almond,” she told him before turning to meet her mate’s gaze. “I’ll put some coffee on.”_

_“Sorry, I woke you, Amme,” Ethan said, and offered her a pouting smile when she touched his arm._

_“Back to the salmon,” J.J. said when Ammeline stepped into the kitchen. “I’m guessing it refers to something important?”_

_Ethan sighed as he moved across the room, sitting down in the middle of the couch and bent forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he dropped his head into his hands. “When I went home tonight, there was a salmon button down on the end of the bed. Patty said she got the shirt for me, but it wasn’t new, and there was a stain on the cuff.” He looked up as he let his hands dangle between his knees. “There wasn’t anything out of place or anything else there that shouldn’t have been, but . . . “_

_J.J. pressed his lips together in a thin line as he released a heavy breath through his nose and moved to sit down on the couch beside his friend. “What do you want to do?” he asked as he turned his head to meet his friend’s gaze._

_Ethan rubbed his lips together as he slowly shook his head, his brows high on his forehead. “I want to believe her, but I know she hasn’t been happy. What do I do, J.J.?”_

“Hey man! Don’t go spacing off on us!”

J.J. rocked forward on his feet, feeling the irritating sting of the slap Corey had landed on his back. Damn cat youkai would be the death of him yet. Blinking quickly as he shook off the last lingering traces of the memory, J.J. grabbed tightly to the thick rope in his hands and stepped back. The muscles across his back and arms bulged beneath his shirt, straining against the weight as he pulled on the middle of three ropes attached to the pulleys anchored between the wrecker and the fire truck as he and two other men worked on hefting the small sedan up over the cliff. It hadn’t fallen very far, and the driver had already been rescued, but when they’d tried attaching the automatic wench to pull the vehicle up, the motor had sputtered, sparked and died.

“How in the hell did he get the guide rope?” George Tanner—better known as Georgie-boy—asked as he grunted. “Damnit!” he called as his foot slipped, the weight of the car pulling him forward before he caught his footing and braced himself once more.

“I say we tag him, bag him, and fry him,” Shorty said out of the side of his mouth as he locked his steely gaze on J.J. and jerked his head toward Corey.

J.J. snorted in response as he changed his hold on the rope, grabbing it higher up before pulling down again. “Tell me why we aren’t hauling this thing up with one of the trucks?”

“Pfft! You were the one who made that call, _boss_ ,” Shorty reminded him. “How the fuck can he dance around like that?” he growled as he pulled back against the weight on the rope he held, his attention focused on Corey.

“You know he gets bored easily. Don’t know how he kept his focus long enough to pass the exams,” George said as he grunted.

“Ninety-percent of the exams are physical,” Shorty shot back. “Kid has more energy than God, and is still going.”

“Yeah, well I say we find a way to squeeze the energy out of him and bottle it. We could make a fortune!”

J.J. released a short-amused breath as he shook his head, turning to look at George. The man had been the youngest on the team, until Corey joined their ranks, and the last one to be hand-picked by Ethan himself. He looked down at the cliffside only a few feet away and clenched his jaw as he pulled harder on the rope, the sound of the earth crunching beneath the car getting louder as the car got closer. He knew that if Ethan had been there with them, his friend would have given the kid a good ribbing for the short-cropped hair he now sported.

George was on the edge of thirty and was still dumb enough to challenge Shorty to a drinking match, believing that he could down more shots than the older man could simply because he was younger. And the price to be paid for losing? Shorty had shaved his head, and the jaw-length black curls had fallen to the floor. Somehow, the new hairstyle made the kid look older, tougher, the curls he’d once worn having given him an almost cherubic appearance.

“You’ve been quiet,” Shorty said, and J.J. turned his head to meet his friend’s gaze, the sound of a metallic groan and one tire popping signaling the car’s rise over the cliff as the nose of the damaged front end appeared. “Ethan?” the man asked, and J.J. nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about him a lot, too. You know, he knew Ricky was leaving before Ricky did. Told me a few days before it all went down that Ricky had one foot out the door. I always wondered why he named him as his kids’ godfather and not you. Hell, those kids are always climbing all over you.” He laughed as he shook his head. “I remember when Gwen had colic as a baby and Ethan swore you were the only one Gwen would quiet down for.”

J.J. chuckled as he smiled, grunting shortly after as he pulled harder on the rope, the car finally making it over the edge of the cliff, the undercarriage scraping across the dirt and rock. “Ethan told me once that he did it to make Patty happy. He never explained what he meant by that though,” he offered, sighing as he released the rope and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his left wrist. “He loved doing this shit,” he laughed as he nodded to the rope and pulleys and the banged-up car. “He always said it was better than going to the gym.”

“J.J.’s Superman!” a small voice called excitedly behind them. J.J. froze in place, his eyes widening as he tensed, before he pushed his anger and concern back and turned around, laughing as he jogged over to the side of the road.

Gwen and Dobby were waiting for him, the girl standing with her brother on her hip and her school bag on her shoulder. There was no one with her. No adult, no familiar vehicle, nothing. Bangor was more than an hour’s drive from where they were now, and as good as the public transportation was in Maine, getting out to where they were by bus would have taken her more than a few hours—and several transfers—to accomplish. Frowning as he looked back behind her, J.J. turned his narrowed gaze on Gwen.

“Saw it on the news, and Dobby wanted to come watch,” she offered with a shrug.

“We’re almost fifty miles from your house. Who drove you out here?” he asked her, doing his best to keep his upset from showing as he took Dobby from her, tossing the boy up into the air and catching him again and again as he shrieked and giggled.

“X-Zoom,” she said with a shrug, and he stiffened at the name of the familiar ride-share app. “We’re fine. I made sure we were safe,” Gwen replied defensively, her arms crossed in front of her.

J.J. sighed. There were times when he almost wondered if Gwen thought he would take Dobby away from her if she were to give him—or anyone else—the impression that she couldn’t take care of Dobby on her own. He knew that it wasn’t that she didn’t trust him, she had simply gotten too used to being the adult and being her brother’s sole caregiver. She was nine years old, still just a cub herself. She should be at home playing with dolls, or drawing or doing what she _wanted_ to do, not acting as her brother’s keeper. If Ethan could see his cubs now, J.J. knew the man would be more than a little upset with the widow he’d left behind.

“Ammeline’s at the school conference tonight. Why didn’t you just have your mother drive you?” he asked her, and Gwen shrugged once more as she adjusted her schoolbag on her shoulder.

“Mom got rid of Dad’s car two days after he died and never bothered to take anything out of it. She doesn’t even own a car seat anymore. If she drives us anywhere, she puts plastic covers on the seat and floor, and I have to hold Dobby on my lap.” Gwen frowned as she looked behind him at the car, her gaze focused on the damage done to the front of it when it had slammed through the roadside barrier. “She went back to New York though, so it’s not like she really could have brought us. Not that she would. She barely acknowledges that we exist.”

“What do you mean she’s back in New York?” he interrupted her, his tone sharper than he’d intended, and watched as her mouth moved before closing with an audible clack.

“The morning after she arrived,” Gwen replied with a sigh. “She was here just long enough to drag us out of school and back to our house. She told me to never embarrass her like that again, and then she wrote out a check for twenty thousand dollars and told me to give it to some lady at the school library.”

J.J. closed his eyes as he forced down his rising ire and took in a deep breath before meeting her gaze once more. “Do you know the lady’s name?” he asked and Gwen nodded. “I want that name, Gwen,” he demanded.

“Linda Grassley.”

“. . . The social worker assigned to your case?” he asked with disbelief and Gwen shrugged. “Your father just died and your mother is abandoning you and she has the audacity to pay someone off.”

_‘At least now you and Amme have an answer as to why child services doesn’t seem to care that those cubs are without a mother,’_ his youkai-voice said, the anger he could feel from his youkai matched only by the anger he felt.

She scoffed as she arched her brow. “She still insists Dad ran off with someone else. He’s—”

“She _what?_ ” J.J. bit out, only barely restraining himself from growling outright.

_‘The hell?’_ his youkai snapped.

“She keeps telling people that Dad ran off with his secretary. Dad never even _had_ a secretary. She just made it all up. Worst part of it is, she keeps trying to convince me that my own father isn’t dead, that he ran off because he didn’t love us. How messed up is that?” she snapped angrily, and he could see the tears shinning in her gaze. “She tried to tell Dobby that. Tried to convince him that Daddy didn’t love him.”

“How long has this been going on?” J.J. asked as he moved to sit down in the grass on the shoulder of the road with Dobby seated in his lap, the lane closest to them closed off from traffic for the rescue vehicles.

“Since the night you all came for us, when you told us about Daddy,” she told him sadly, for once sounding as young as she actually was, and bit her lip when her chin trembled. “She acts like he did it on purpose. All of his pictures are gone. Everything of his is gone, except what I brought over to your house when you took us there. But at home, it’s like he never even existed. Mom gets mad when I talk about him, but she talks about Uncle Ricky enough, and he _did_ leave. Just walked out and didn’t even tell us. I stopped trying to call him after the fourth message that went unanswered . . .  His answer was pretty clear,” said solemnly.

J.J. frowned as he reached out to smooth his hand down over the length of her hair, tucking her against his side in a one-armed hug. “She talks about Ricky?” he asked.

Gwen shrugged as she looked out across the highway, staring off into the trees on the other side of the road. “Only to say that he had the right idea in moving out to L.A. She always says that she hates it here. I used to hear her and Daddy fighting when they thought I was asleep. She kept trying to get him to move back to New York. Said he could make more money in magazines.” Gwen folded her arms tighter as she curled closer to J.J., shivering under the cool breeze that blew through the trees. “I swear, sometimes, I think she hated him. It’s like she’s glad that he’s dead.”

“You didn’t trip on the stairs two weeks ago, did you?” he asked her, scraping his teeth together as he tried to reign in his temper. It was Dobby who answered.

“The mean lady hit Mommy!” Dobby said as he lifted his head from J.J.’s shoulder. “An’ den she hit me when I said I wanted Daddy. When’s Daddy coming home? Why did he go away, J.J.? Can’t you tell him to come home?”

Gwen gasped as she turned away, slipping out from beneath his arm and turned her back to him, the smell of salt filling the air as the tears in her eyes fell upon her cheeks. J.J. sighed as he turned her around to face him. Her chin trembled as she shook her head, tucking herself against his side as she hid her face against his ribs. He sighed silently as he wrapped his arm around Gwen, dropping a kiss to her hair as he held her close, his arm around her back, as he rubbed her arm.

“You always have a home with us. Both of you,” he promised the children. “Anytime you need us, anytime you want a break from her, or she runs off and leaves you alone, always remember that you have a home with us where you are welcomed and wanted. And should you ever feel like you want to run away from home, I want you to promise that you’ll run to me and Ammeline. I don’t want you out there alone,” he told Gwen, and clenched his jaw when she offered a broken sob, her breath hitching as she nodded. “Shorty,” he called back over his shoulder, only to release an amused breath when he found the man already close by.

“The guys and I got this. I’ll drop the reports off on your desk and you can deal with them later,” he said, and J.J. nodded his thanks. “Go on and get them out of here. Looks like it’s going to rain.”

“Showty!” Dobby called to the man as he lifted his arms in the air, opening and closing his fists as he begged to be picked up.

“I’m a mess, little man,” Shorty told him with a grin. “How about we get the guys together for a movie night, or some mountain camping like we used to do with you and your dad?” he asked, glancing up at J.J. The polar bear nodded, and Shorty’s smile widened. “We’ll set a date,” he promised the boy.

“Okay, Showty,” Dobby answered, wrapping his arms around J.J.’s neck when the man stood. “Mommy, I’m tired.”

“I know, baby,” Gwen answered as she stood.

J.J. frowned when she wavered on her feet, reaching out a steadying hand to help her regain her balance. “When was the last time you slept?” he asked her.

“Ask him,” she deflected, flicking her wrist at Dobby. “He’s the one that doesn’t want to go to sleep anymore. I need to get Cheerios, he’s almost out. It’s the only thing he eats anymore,” she said absently, turning around as if she was looking for something, only to still and narrow her eyes at the ground. “Did I have Dobby’s bag with me?”

“No,” J.J. replied with a worried frown. “Come on, you two are moving back in with us for the time being. And you need—” His words cut off when he brushed his hand against her cheek, his frown deepening when he cupped his palm over her brow. “—sleep,” he finished tightly.

_‘She’s warm,’_ he thought.

His youkai scoffed in response. _‘Warm? You’ve held mugs of coffee that weren’t as hot as she is. That girl has a fever.’_

_‘She’s human. Humans get sick,’_ he replied, and felt the answering anger from his youkai.

_‘Yeah, and humans can die from being sick,’_ his youkai maintained.

J.J. pursed his lips but chose not to respond. She probably just had a cold, or maybe the flu but in the age of over the counter cold medicine and penicillin, he didn’t feel the need to worry as much as his youkai did. She needed sleep—real sleep—a decent meal, and a warm bed, he told himself. And if he knew his mate as well as he thought he did, Ammeline would be playing mother hen in no time. She’d already told him a few times that Gwen and Dobby were her pups, genetics be damned.

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

**  
**

J.J. stepped into the open door of the bedroom, his hands tucked into the pockets of his pants as he leaned against the wooden frame, watching as Ammeline sat next Gwen on the bed, the human girl tucked beneath the blankets. It had been two days, and the fever he’d brought her home with had yet to abate. And despite Gwen’s fervent arguments to the contrary, Ammeline had kept her home from school for those same two days, insisting that her health was more important than her school work.

“I hear someone’s been a little resistant to the idea of taking it easy,” he said, leaning down to catch Dobby when the toddler hopped off his bed and ran toward him. “Hi, little man,” he greeted as he sat Dobby on his hip, holding the child against his side with his arm curled around his back and under his bottom.

“J.J., Mama’s sick,” Dobby told him, his eyes wide in an exaggerated pout as he grabbed onto the Search and Rescue patch on the shoulder of J.J.’s sleeve.

“I know,” he told the boy, tapping the end of his nose with his index finger before turning his attention on Gwen. “You can’t sleep, can you?” he asked Gwen and watched her shake her head. “Why don’t you scoot over a bit,” he instructed.

Ammeline smiled as she stood up and moved to sit on the opposite side of the bed, her back against the headboard. “Once you’re better, Gwen, I’m going to take you and your brother shopping and we’ll turn this into your room, and the other guest room into your brother’s room. How would you like that?” she asked as J.J. toed out of his house shoes and moved toward the bed.

“Our rooms?” Gwen asked softly, her voice scratchy and weak.

“For as long as you like, whenever you want or need them,” she promised, dropping a kiss to the girl’s hair. “You’ll always have a home here. I think J.J.’s planning on telling you a story,” she said as she glanced up at her mate with a knowing smile.

“Stowy!” Dobby exclaimed, throwing his fists into the air in excitement and only narrowly missing J.J.’s cheek in the process.

“Your father carried the stories of his people,” J.J. began as he sat down, and lifted his arm to allow Gwen closer, wrapping his arm around her back when she tucked herself against his side. “Some would call him a bard, others would call him a troubadour. But Ethan would just tell you that he loved to hear and tell the stories of his ancestors.” J.J. smiled as he looked down at Gwen, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Over the years, Ethan and I would go camping up in the mountains and he would tell me the stories of his people or recite his favorite legends about King Arthur by the campfire.”

“Like Mama?” Dobby asked from where he sat in the man’s lap, his wide cobalt eyes—Ethan’s eyes—staring up curiously.

“Just like,” J.J. agreed with a smile. “You’ve got your father’s gift for storytelling, Gwen. He used to get the same lilt to his voice that you do when you recite that book to Dobby. You have his eidetic memory, too. He could remember everything he ever read.”

“I can’t do that with everything,” Gwen denied, her brow furrowed in a thoughtful scowl.

“Sure, you can,” Ammeline told her, the woman sitting behind the girl. “How else would you remember those obscure details Mrs. Carmichael asks on the history tests without needing to reference the book or your notes?”

“I never thought even thought about that,” Gwen muttered slowly, her quiet voice alight with wonder. “The answers were always just there.”

J.J. chuckled as he squeezed her close, tipping his head down to drop a kiss to her hair. “I knew Ethan before he married your mother. In fact, I don’t know if he ever told you or not, but he hand-picked me to be on his team all those years ago, and I wasn’t even search and rescue back then.”

“He did?” Gwen asked, and the man nodded with a smile.

“He did. Back then, I hadn’t really settled into what I wanted to do. I was just working as a tour guide down at Fields Bond Audubon, teaching kids about plant life. Ethan had come down there,” he paused as he narrowed his eyes, “I don’t remember if he ever told me why he was there, but, one of the kids on tour had snuck away and gotten into one of the exhibits marked off limits. It was down for repairs and renovation, he had just wanted to go on an adventure, and ended up getting trapped when he kicked the leg of a scaffolding platform and it fell on him. We knew that structure was bad, which is part of the reason why it was blocked off. I went in to get the cub out, and your dad was right there with me, working side by side to rescue him. I swear, in that moment, it felt like we’d always done that—always worked together. I’m not one to normally believe in past lives, but if I did, it would have been because of him.”

“Dad always said you were a natural,” Gwen said, her voice soft as she stared up at him. He watched her frown thoughtfully as she narrowed her eyes. “He used to call you dina . . . dina . . . “

“Dinadanvtli, it means brother,” J.J. supplied as she stumbled over the Cherokee word and nodded, his mouth tilting up to one side in a crooked grin. “The story I thought I’d tell you tonight, is something your father told me. It was the night of your birth, Gwen,” he told her, and watched her eyes light up. “You were born at home. Did your dad ever tell you that?” he asked, and smiled when she shook her head, her eyes wide with wonder and excitement.

Ammeline chuckled. “As I recall, your mother had everything planned out, including a prescheduled C-section.”

J.J. laughed as he rolled his eyes, nodding as he sighed. “Yes, she did. Your mother had everything planned out in a very specific set order, but you, little miss,” he said with a chuckle as he mussed Gwen’s hair, “were bound and determined to do it all on your own. Ethan called me in the middle of the night, he’d gone out to get something that your mother was craving—lasagna, I think it was—and when he came back, she was in full labor. That indigestion she thought she had was you trying your damnedest to fight your way out of the womb.”

“I did not!” Gwen scoffed. J.J. and Ammeline laughed.

“Oh, yes you did,” J.J. told her with a wide smile. “Ammeline and I went over to your house, and oh your mother was _pissed_ ,” he chuckled. “She does not like it when people don’t follow her plans. You were already crowning before we got there, and your head was out before the ambulance arrived. Three weeks early, and feisty as hell,” he recalled with a laugh. “You were the cutest little thing,” he praised her.

“The medics told your dad what we both already knew—you were healthy and perfect. They took your mom in to be checked out, but your mom refused to let your dad ride in the ambulance. No one really knew why,” he said, brow furrowed in confusion. “A couple nights later, your dad showed up on my doorstep, snow falling all around him, and you wrapped in a blanket in his arms.”

_“It’s almost midnight,” Ammeline said as she stepped out of the bedroom, following after her mate, wrapping the silk robe around herself tightly before belting it closed._

_J.J. closed his eyes as he took in a deep breath, pushing his youki out through the house and around it as he stood in the middle of the living room. He released a sharp amused breath, a smile spreading across his face seconds before he opened his eyes. The smile he offered his mate as he glanced back at her was the only answer she needed. He watched her frown as she looked at him, his eyes sparkling when she lifted her nose to sniff the air._

_“Oh, you can’t be serious,” she said as her face brightened with a disbelieving smile._

_The sound of J.J.’s warm chuckle rumbled behind her when she darted forward, snapping open the locks before pulling the door open. She didn’t speak as she gasped, her eyes widening as she cupped her hands together over her nose and mouth in delight._

_“Ethan, bring that cub inside before you both freeze,” J.J. said with a wide smile. “What in the hell possessed you to come over here at this hour?” he asked, arching a brow as he laughed._

_The warmth of the human man’s aura filled the room, the love and paternal pride he felt radiating out like a beacon in the dark. He turned his head down to look at the bundle in his arms, brushing the bits of snow off the blanket before folding the cloth back to reveal the sleeping infant’s face._

_“There’s a tradition in my family, dating back centuries,” Ethan began, his voice soft and reverent. He paused as he looked up to meet J.J.’s gaze. Their eyes held for a moment before the man looked to Ammeline. “You guys both know I’m part of Native American—kind of a mutt of a few tribes, actually—but my parents and grandparents have never really been kind to want to live on the Rez.”_

_J.J. nodded as Ammeline ushered Ethan to the couch, bidding him to sit down before covering the man with the crocheted afghan that hung over the back of it. Ethan chuckled as he nodded his appreciation, dragging the blanket up over his daughter and moving to the center cushion._

_“You might want to put some coffee on, Amme,” J.J. said as he studied his friend through narrowed eyes. “I think Ethan’s got a story to tell.”_

_Ethan laughed as he nodded, tipping his head to one side with a crooked grin. “I called Grampa earlier today to make sure I had the words right. Dad died before he could tell me the story, but Grampa used to tell it to me all the time before I moved out on my own,” he said as Ammeline disappeared into the kitchen, returning a few moments later with three bottles of water._

_“The coffee’s on, but it’ll take a bit before it’s done brewing,” she said as she offered Ethan a bottle of water. “I’m guessing Patty’s at home sleeping?” she asked._

_J.J. frowned at the way his friend’s smile fell, confusion and sadness coloring his aura. “Ethan?”_

_The man took in a deep breath before releasing the air in a slow heavy sigh. “Patty won’t touch her. I got formula, and I’ve been feeding Gwen that, but . . . She won’t even save what she pumps, just throws it out. The doctor called it Postpartum Depression, but it doesn’t feel like she’s sad to me, it feels like she just . . . “ He fell silent as he shook his head._

_J.J. narrowed his eyes. “Ethan, forgive me for asking, but when did Patty tell you she was pregnant?”_

_Ethan frowned at the question, a thoughtful scowl narrowing his eyes. “A couple days before I was going to talk with her about getting a divorce. I had all the papers drawn up. I didn’t really want the divorce, but she wasn’t happy and I knew that. She never did like the idea of moving to Maine with me, but I was only in New York to help out with the emergency teams after the storms hit. That’s how we met. I always knew she wanted to move back, but my life is here and she knew that. I . . .” His frown deepened as he met J.J.’s gaze. “Why do you ask?”_

_“Just curious,” he replied, brushing off the question._

_The last thing he intended to do was tell his friend that he believed Patty only had the baby in order to keep him with her. He had learned over the years just how devious that human woman could be. She may not want to be in Maine, but she also wasn’t willing to give up Ethan. The worst part of it all was, J.J. thought, that there were times he truly couldn’t tell if Patty loved her husband or was only staying with him out of some kind of misplaced possessive jealousy. Human or not, he wouldn’t be the one to try to come between Ethan and his wife._

_“I was fourteen when my parents died,” Ethan began a few moments later, his eyes focused on the baby in his arms. “Dad was a firefighter,” he said, glancing up at J.J. “Did I ever tell you that?”_

_“I don’t think so,” J.J. replied with a shake of his head._

_Ethan nodded as he looked back down at his daughter. “Mom was an emergency room nurse. He used to joke that they were always meant to be together.” He shook his head as he smiled. “He was huge. Taller than me, broader than me, too, if you can believe that. Dad was a mutt, too,” he said with a laugh. “His father—my Grandpa . . . well, he’s a mutt, too, but he was half Lakota—on his father’s side, and his mother was from Argentina. She’s nearing eighty, and still gorgeous. Luck of the genes, I guess.”_

_Ammeline pouted curiously as she tilted her head in thought. “You said your grandfather is half Lakota. What’s the other half?”_

_Ethan looked up to meet her gaze, a bright smile stretching across his face. “That’s where the story comes in. Half Lakota, half Cherokee and Chickasaw.” He chuckled as he rolled his eyes. “I know, I know. The face fools you. Most people think I should be as dark as J.J., here, but my Dad’s mother is very light skinned Argentinian—and tall! She’s six-foot-one,” he told them with a laugh. “My mother’s father was Scottish. Red Scottish strain and damn near seven-foot tall. Her mother was half-Cheyenne, half-French. In the summer I can almost match your color, if I’m in the sun long enough,” he teased J.J. “But most of the year I’m . . . “_

_“Almond,” Ammeline supplied when he trailed off and Ethan nodded._

_“Almond,” he repeated with a nod._

_“Keep going,” J.J. said as he stood from his seat on the coffee table and moved into the kitchen. “You want some coffee, Ethan? Pot’s done.”_

_“Yes, thank you,” Ethan called back to him._

_“Ammeline, do you mind,” Ethan asked as J.J. walked back into the room carrying three mugs of steaming coffee on a small tray._

_“Not one bit, you give that pup to me,” she said with a smile as she reached out for the infant._

_“Pup,” Ethan repeated with a chuckle. “I think my arm’s falling asleep. Thank you,” he said as he accepted the mug from J.J. “First time she’s slept since she was born,” he told his friends._

_“She’s gorgeous,” Ammeline praised as she turned, holding the baby for J.J. to see._

_“Jordan and Ammeline Jacobs, meet my daughter, Gwenhwyfar Marion Dobson. The first-born daughter of my tribe,” he said, and J.J. glanced up at him curiously, the words sounding oddly rehearsed. “Tonight, under the first full moon of her life, I ask for your blessing. If my journey is cut short, I ask that you walk with her, guide her until she can walk alone.”_

_J.J. studied Ethan silently, his expression reflecting the gravity of his friend’s request. “She will always have our protection, my friend. She will always have a home with us and a place in our tribe,” he returned solemnly._

_“J.J.?” Ammeline asked as she looked up at her mate curiously._

_“Tell your story, Ethan,” J.J. said, nodding to his friend when Ammeline’s gaze remained focused on him._

“But Uncle Ricky was our Godfather. I thought he was Dad’s best friend,” Gwen said with a frown, her voice pulling J.J. from the memory.

“He and your father were friends, yes, and he was your Godfather,” J.J. agreed with a slow nod. “But as Ethan used to say “Godfather is a white-man’s term”. What your father was asking of us was more and different.”

_“Grampa called it “Spirit Family”. Dad told me his best friend—a man he worked with in Fire and Rescue—was my Chosen Family. If anything ever happened to him, the Chosen family would be there to take me in if my own family couldn’t. Dad’s friend died in a fire about a month after mom and dad died in the wreck,” he told them. “That’s when Grampa took me in and moved me in with him and Grams down in Wyoming.”_

_Ethan lifted the mug of coffee to his lips, taking a sip of the dark brew before lowering the mug to cradle it in his hands, his forearms resting on his thighs as he bent forward._

_“No one’s quite sure exactly when, the date got lost along the way, but sometime back in the mid-1700’s, in a territory that straddled the border of what is now Arkansas and Missouri, lived two tribes. One Chickasaw, one Cherokee. Unlike many of the tribes near them, they did not have conflict, and often hunted and fought together. When the winters were harsh, they shared food and resources. When the people were sick or injured, the tribes came together to care for them all as one. But until the summer of 1749, as the story goes, they’d never intermarried between the tribes.”_

_He paused in his story to take another drink. J.J. set his own coffee mug down as he reached for Gwen, taking the sleeping infant from his mate, and holding her close as he touched the pads of his index and middle fingers to the cub’s brow, closing his eyes as he and his youkai voice promised the child their protection. He removed his fingers, kissing her brow, before holding her close and letting a low growl rumble in his chest. The sound was too quiet to be heard by Ethan, but he knew the infant would feel the vibrations._

_“The best hunter of the Chickasaw tribe had a daughter, marrying age, who had been training to be a medicine woman. When she was a young child, her father and the tribe’s medicine man discovered that she could walk between worlds. Her spiritual power was enough that she could see the spirits that lived within people, and the spirits of those who had passed. According to legend, she was able to bridge the rift between their two tribes and a tribe of wolf-people who lived in one of the caves near them.”_

_“Wolf-people?” Ammeline asked as she glanced from Ethan, to her mate, and back again._

_Ethan shrugged. “I don’t know, some of the translation got lost along the way. Grampa said they carried the spirit of the wolves inside of them. One of the elders from the tribe we’d go visit sometimes, said the people called themselves . . .” He narrowed his eyes as searched his memory. “Yolk . . . yoh-kee . . . “ He sighed and offered a shrug. “It’s been so long now, I don’t remember what the word was.”_

_J.J. looked at Ammeline, their gazes holding for a few long seconds as they offered each other a knowing smile._

_“Where was I? . . . Oh yes, the summer it all changed. The Cherokee tribe, the top hunter for their people was best friends with the father of the young woman from the Chickasaw tribe. He had a son who was also of marrying age, and while his son was said to walk with the spirits, too, his vision was different. It was said that in the morning, before he led the others on a hunt, he would sit and pray and the spirit of each animal that he would kill would come to him in a vision. They would show him where to find them, and he would offer each a sacred prayer in his vision, before he led the hunt. Not once, in the years he lived, did his visions ever fail them. Even during the times when hunting was poor, his visions always led them to what they needed.”_

_His story was interrupted by a yawn, and Ethan lifted a hand to cover his mouth. Blinking wide as he took another long drink of his coffee, he set the mug down on the coffee table next to J.J.’s. Scrubbing his palms over his face, Ethan sat back against the couch, crossing his arms over his chest as he watched his daughter sleep in J.J.’s arms. His lips turned up in a gentle smile, his eyes blinking tiredly as he took in a breath to continue his story._

_“The fathers promised their children to each other, the daughter and the son married that summer, and in the winter, they became pregnant with their first of ten children. Each child was said to have the sight in varying degrees, but it was the first-born son and first-born daughter who held it the strongest. Some of their children married with members of the wolf-people, but the first-born daughter and son married within their own tribes and the power was passed down through the generations. But you see, back when the children—the Cherokee hunter and the Chickasaw medicine woman—were infants, their fathers were best friends and they each asked the other to be their child’s Spirit Family. And so, the tradition has carried on.”_

_“Spirit Family,” Ammeline repeated with a nod. “We’re honored, Ethan.”_

_The man chuckled as he blinked slowly, fighting against the exhaustion he felt. “I must be more tired than I thought,” he said slowly, his eyes falling closed. “Coulda sworn I saw stripes on you, Amme. Only ever seen ‘em on J.J before,” he murmured as he fell asleep._

“They’re asleep,” Ammeline said, and J.J. nodded as he blinked the memory away. “I’d almost forgotten about that. Ethan never said anything else about it.”

J.J. snorted in amusement. “I don’t think he could see through the concealments clearly. There were times that he’d do this double-take look at me, but it only happened when he was really tired or vulnerable, or when he was so relaxed that he let his guard down. I wonder sometimes, if either of them can see through the concealments.”

“Mom told me once that most infants and toddlers can,” Ammeline said, grinning as she nodded down to Dobby, the toddler asleep with the end of J.J.’s braid in his mouth, the polar bear youkai’s concealment usually hiding it. “She said once they turned three that something happened. She wasn’t sure what, but she described it as though the pups stopped believing that fairytales were real. I don’t know. I don’t think any of our kind have ever studied it—and for good reason—and I think Mom’s exposure to human pups was limited, but. . . ” She sighed as she shrugged. “Who knows?”

“Sometimes, I think Gwen can,” he told her quietly. “She likes to trace the back of my hand, exactly where my crests are, but she’s never said anything.”

“She might just think they’re tattoos, depending on how well she can see them,” Ammeline offered.

“Time will tell,” he agreed with a slow nod.

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

  

**_Early March, 2056_ **

**_Quebec City_ **

The barest sliver of the waning moon cast an eerie glow over the land, ankle-high grasses dancing in the early spring breeze as patches of silver light reflected in broken patterns on the surface of the natural pond. Deep rich green leaves shook and trembled in the midnight breeze, the new growth of the season on the century old tree beckoning them closer with the promise of a safe hiding place. Their feet whispered against the feathering grasses as they darted out from the cover of the forest to run across the open field, coming to a stop beneath the dark shadow cast by the large oak.

“Wait for me,” Satoshi ordered quietly, nodding to the tree above them.

Vanessa whined as she was passed from her mother’s arms to her father’s, at the same time, Satoshi passed the bags he’d been carrying to his mate. He held their daughter as she snuggled against his shoulder, keeping his youki wrapped around her in a cocoon of safety as she slept. He narrowed his eyes as he cast his gaze over the field around them, waiting for Amaya to climb into the tree. The bags weren’t light by any means, the worry that the weight might unbalance Amaya making him turn his attention back to watch as she moved from branch to branch, climbing up into the highest strongest boughs of the tree where she was almost completely hidden from view. He narrowed his eyes as he watched her brace herself between two stout branches as she reached over to a third to hook one bag over a wide branch before repeating the process two more times. If he hadn’t known where she was, he thought with some measure of relief, he never would’ve been able to see her. He moved carefully as he took the bag his daughter carried from her shoulders, slipping the straps down her arms before tossing it up to her waiting mother.

“Okay, give her to me,” Amaya said as she came back down to the wide branch just above Satoshi’s head, and reached out for their daughter.

“Papa,” Vanessa whined in her sleep, sighing heavily as she was wrapped securely in her mother’s arms.

“I’ll be back soon,” he told them, the barest hint of a smile curling the edges of his lips when he felt Amaya’s energy wrap around his as they held their daughter in the twin embrace of their youki before he withdrew his and offered a slow nod to his mate. “When I was scouting earlier, in the tops of that old pine, I saw barns on each property. It’ll be better if we can stay in one of them tonight. It smells like rain.”

“You can just thicken the branches of this tree, can’t you?” Amaya asked him quietly, and he looked up to see her furrowed brow, frowning at the weakness he felt in her youki. She was exhausted, he thought, his lips pressed into a thin line. “You don’t have to—”

“Amaya,” he interrupted her gently, but firmly, his brows arched as he offered her a pointed stare. “I’ll be back,” he promised, and waited for her nod before he left the cover of the tree.

His mate was exhausted, and he would be a fool to not know why. He’d felt the barrier she’d cast around himself and Vanessa as they’d slept each night, though there was a part of him that was beginning to suspect that his mate wasn’t actively aware of what she was doing. As much as he wished they could have remained in the cover of the forest, knowing that in some manner it brought his mate a sense of security, he knew that they couldn’t.  For all the foliage that surrounded them there, they were too exposed. Each time they went back and forth between the trees and the pond, they risked someone seeing them. His family needed shelter, fresh water, and food, but above all safety. The tree he had left his mate and daughter in was a good compromise, but a barn with a roof and—if it was one of the newer redesigned buildings—heat, would be better.

They were in new territory here in Canada, he acknowledged as he pulled the cuffs of the dark sweater he wore down over his hands. The wildlife where they had lived in Montana had been used to them, responding to Vanessa in a way that they never had with him—with caution and curiosity, and even at times, treating her as one of their own. A few of the wild deer and foxes even allowed her to pet them or hug them, but he couldn’t take that risk here where the wild animals were bigger.

The creatures in Montana had been smaller—the cougars, bears, and wolves not needing nearly as much girth to survive the winters. Even the moose—for as large as they were—had still be smaller, but here in Canada where lynxes were common, where eagles and hawks were big enough to attack and fly off with medium-sized dogs or small children, he knew Vanessa would be in danger. She was too used to reaching out to the animals as she would a friend—predatory or not—and he knew she wouldn’t see anything wrong at all with trying to reach out to pet one of them here.

He sighed as he looked back over his shoulder, taking caution before stepping out from the shadow he’d taken shelter in, and darted toward another one, hiding in the patch of darkness. The wind shifted around him, bringing with it the scents of evergreen and daffodils to ensnare his mind as a memory rose up around him in whispers and shadows.

_Vanessa smiled up at him, giggling softly before turning back to the fox lying in front of her, petting the creature’s soft flame-toned fur. “Don’t be silly, Papa. I can’t talk to animals.”_

_“Are you sure?” he asked curiously, kneeling down next to her, watching as the fox sniffed at him cautiously before flipping onto its feet and darting into the bushes. “It seems like every creature out here likes you but doesn’t like me.”_

_“They like Mama, but not as much as me,” Vanessa offered with a shrug. “I can feel them.”_

_“Feel them?” he asked, his eyes narrowed as he shook his head. “Feel them how?”_

_“Through the earth,” she answered as though it was the most normal thing in the world, and perhaps to her it was, he allowed. “But not if I’m wearing shoes.” She tilted her head to one side as she narrowed her eyes. “Well, I can when I’m wearing the shoes you make me, but not when I wear the ones Mama got me.”_

_“The Mary Janes,” he clarified and watched her nod. The shoes and accompanying dress had been a birthday gift for Vanessa, given to Amaya by one of the farmers they gathered wool from. Vanessa didn’t like either the shoes or the dress, but she wore them when her mother took her to the farmer’s ranch with her. “How does that work?” he asked as he studied the girl who was just two days shy of her fifth birthday._

_“I don’t know. I can’t feel bugs or really small stuff like squirrels and mice and babies, but . . .” she said as she stood up, closing her eyes as she shuffled her bare feet in the leaves until she was standing on the sparse grass and soil hidden beneath. “There’s a bear,” she told him with certainty, pointing to the northeast. “And a rabbit,” she said as she turned, her eyes still closed as she pointed to the bushes behind them._

_Sure enough, there was a rather impressively large rabbit rooting around in the leaves as it searched for food. “You do have your mother’s power after all,” he mused slowly, tilting his head to one side as he watched her, his eyes widening as his brow furrowed slightly. “How long have you been able to feel the animals like this?”_

_“I don’t know,” she said as she opened her eyes to meet his gaze and shook her head as she dropped her arms. “Always.”_

_“Do you feel anything else?” he asked her curiously, watching her push her lips out as she tilted her head, chuckling at the thought that she looked a bit like a duck._

_“Like what?” she asked, and he shrugged._

_“Anything,” he answered, waiting as he watched her consider his question, her lips twisted to one side._

_Her shoulders moved slowly, scrunching up to her ears before falling back down as she narrowed her eyes. “Teddy,” she said, pointing back in the direction of the bear. “He’s not feeling well. Whenever I focus on him, my tummy hurts and I feel really tired, but I know it’s not my tummy, it’s his because when I do the same with Floppy,” she said, nodding back toward the rabbit, “I just feel . . . normal.” She tipped her head to the side as her brow furrowed. “Mama never said she had a power,” the girl said, smiling wide as she met his gaze. “Does that mean I can fly?”_

_“No flying, sweet girl,” he told her with a laugh. “Your mother, being what she is, has powers of the mind. She used to try so hard to communicate with me as she did her family in the ocean, mind to mind and heart to heart, but she never could. She taught me how to speak with her a different way though, the same way you do.” He watched as Vanessa twirled in the grass, her arms stretched out at her sides, the skirt of her tapa dress lifting up into a small bell. “It seems that your power is a mix of hers and mine. You feel the earth in everything that it is—the plants, the creatures. You feel its life.”_

_She hummed as she stopped twirling and looked up at him, her lips twisted to the side in thought as she pouted. “So, no flying?” she asked, and he laughed._

The memory faded as Satoshi reached back over his shoulder, catching the end of his braid in his hand and dragged it forward to pull the cloth covered band from the tail of it, snapping the bit of elastic around his wrist. It didn’t take him more than a few seconds to free his hair, and he took the time to ruffle the dark locks, making certain most of his face was hidden from the light of the moon. He and Amaya were both fair-skinned, as pale as fresh fallen snow or ivory, and under the night sky lit only by the silvery watery light of the moon and stars, their skin often appeared to glow and shimmer in the dark.

_‘The last thing you need is to create another legend about a phantom,’_ his youkai reminded him, and he sighed. _‘Youkai know what moonlight looks like against another youkai’s skin—especially pale youkai like you are. But a human? To them youkai look like glowing creatures under the moonlight.’_

_‘Only when we’re so far out in the country like this,’_ he replied dismissively.

_‘The city doesn’t count, Satoshi,’_ his youkai scoffed. _‘There’s too much artificial light. The moon and stars get lost in it. Wait,’_ the voice warned him when he advanced a few steps. _‘Don’t go any closer, I think someone’s coming out.’_

Satoshi stilled, slipping back into the shadow of the tree near him, as he watched the door to the barn open, an older human man stepping out into the night only to turn around as the barn door closed behind him. He narrowed his eyes as he watched the man open a cover beside the door, pressing his thumb against the hidden pad underneath. The sound of a lock sliding into place caught his attention, along with an electronic beep, and he heaved a mental sigh. It would have been easy enough to hide in the barn, human senses being dull enough to not feel someone else on their land, but the Identilock on the building prevented that. Even if he wanted to, there would be no way for him to get inside.

“Damnit,” he whispered to himself, and turned, dashing away from the barn.

_‘You could always break the lock.’_

Satoshi narrowed his eyes at his youkai-voice’s suggestion. The whole idea was to not draw attention to themselves and cutting the wires on an Identilock pad or damaging the control panel would draw _a lot_ of attention. He’d learned firsthand the kind of screeching—deafening—alarm that would sound from cutting the wires on an Identilock security system. That was a lesson he’d only ever needed to learn once, he thought, his gaze falling to the feathering grasses at his feet, watching as the emerald blades danced around his bare feet. He’d given up on his shoes sometime in January, the once-polished leather loafers that he’d worn to the small office he’d worked at in Montana not meant for the rigors of the outdoors.

_‘There are more than a few wild jack rabbits around here. Make yourself a pair of moccasins like you made for Vanessa.’_

He sighed as he looked up, watching the human man walk toward the main house, his shuffling gait growing slower. Cold weather was not kind to humans, he’d learned that rather quickly after taking his first job in a mostly-human run company well over three hundred years ago. He’d seen it again and again over the centuries, humans falling ill so easily with the change in season while he and the other limited youkai or hanyou in the offices remained healthy.

He blinked as his gaze fell, a heavy exhalation forced from him as he closed his eyes slowly in regret. It was the jobs he’d kept each time they moved to another city—that’s how they were being found so easily, wasn’t it? It should have occurred to him before, but it hadn’t and he realized now that he had been the one putting his family in danger. Like a morbid game of hot potato, all it would take was one youkai getting close enough to sense that he wasn’t completely earth to make a comment to another youkai that they knew, and the word about him and his location would spread like a virus. The click of the latch pulled him from his musing, his eyes narrowing as he stared at the house. The second the light in the front room went off, he darted from beneath the cover of the tree.

He moved quickly across the land, his form nothing more than a dark blur that would be easy enough for the human mind to reason away as shadows of trees in the night breeze. Crouching low before pushing off the ground, he sprang high into a weeping fir tree that was easily two hundred feet tall, and climbed higher into the thick branches to gain a better vantage point as he looked down at the other property. Both houses were massive, the estates clearly meant for someone of wealth and privilege, he thought as his gaze fell to tree he was crouched in. There had been a time that he had lived in that kind of luxury, but to do so again came at a price, one he wasn’t willing to pay.

The soft yellow glow of a light flicking on drew his attention, and he turned his gaze back to the house below. Humans, he thought with some relief. It wasn’t much, and he wouldn’t be able to take his family into the barn on either property, but at least the occupants of both estates were humans. There was some measure of comfort in knowing that there wouldn’t be a youkai coming out in search of any new presence or scent on their land.

Satoshi flinched back, his brows drawing together as he lifted his hand to wipe the droplet of water from his cheek, and looked up through the boughs of the tree, the evergreen stretching another hundred feet above him. It was raining. Rubbing his hand down over his face, he shook his head and dropped down to a lower branch before landing silently in the wet grass below. This was exactly the thing he’d been trying to avoid. Youkai couldn’t get sick, they didn’t catch colds or the flu like humans did, but he knew how cold rains affected Vanessa . . . how they affected Amaya.

Where Vanessa became tired and wanted nothing more than to sleep, Amaya became energized, responsive. The cold rains reminded his mate of the ocean, of a home that would always exist in her heart, and the deep sorrow that she thought she hid from him. He knew she would dream of swimming in the ocean in her youkai form tonight, perhaps even over the next few days, and he knew that waking up as she was, in her humanoid form, would make her cry. She would smile for him, be extra attentive and affectionate, even as she tried to hide her tears. It wasn’t that their life together was lacking, or that she regretted being with him—he knew that without question—but he also knew that she feared he’d think just that.

“Amaya?” Satoshi called out as he came to a stop under the tree by the pond, frowning as he stared up through the boughs. The tree was fuller than before, even knowing where his family was, he couldn’t see them.

“Vanessa,” Amaya answered him simply as he alighted onto a branch halfway between the bottom of the tree and where she was. “When it started to rain, she made the branches thicker, fuller, and braided them to keep us dry. She made her own nest,” she told him as she nodded to the side.

He followed her gaze, a smile tugging at his lips when he spotted the nest balanced between two thick branches. The twisted bowl was grown from the tree, branches emerging from the trunk only to wind around each other, braided together like a basket. He kissed Amaya’s cheek as he joined her on the branch she was sitting on and peered over the side at their daughter. Green vines had been wrapped around the nest, thick flowering bunches of wisteria hanging down around the inside of the nest, filling it from the bottom to cushion her.

“She loves wisteria,” he mused, the sound of his mate’s laughter soothing him.

“It’s the flowers,” she told him, drawing in a breath as she tucked herself under his arm against his side. “She said it’s like sleeping on a cloud. And the jasmine,” she said, reaching out to touch the long ropes of star jasmine that had been wrapped over each other into a blanket. “She loves the smell of jasmine.”

Satoshi released a heavy breath, a wistful exhalation as he shook his head slowly. “I fear that one day she’ll look back on this and . . . “

“And what?” she asked when he remained silent. “Satoshi, these are the times she’ll remember, the memories she’ll cherish. She won’t look back on this and be upset. She’ll look back on this and remember what it was like to be where she belonged, surrounded by the things that make her who she is.”

Satoshi sighed as he nodded slightly, whether he was agreeing with her or not, he wasn’t sure. Closing his eyes as he pressed his hands against the trunk of the tree, he pushed his youki into the wood, feeling the oak vibrate as it responded to him. Three branches grew out from the tree, two were on the same level with one slightly beneath in the middle. The twin branches reached out, wrapped around each other in a long oval, the branch underneath curving down before arcing back up to wind around the twisted branches.

Satoshi stopped as he took a breath, the task of creating the bed he and his mate would sleep in more taxing on him now because of the constant energy he’d been pouring into the earth and forest around his family. His efforts to keep them safe, to look out for any dangers, any unknown youki, left him running on fumes just as much as Amaya was. The want for something more permanent, something that would offer his family just a modicum of stability burned within him as powerful as it was debilitating.  His most important job was to protect them, and lately—more often than not—he felt like he was failing miserably.

“Pick a flower, just not a rose or anything with thorns,” he told Amaya without looking back at her, and smiled when she giggled. They both knew he could make a rose bush form without its natural thorns, but his gentle teasing soothed her, taking away her fear as he knew it would.

“Honeysuckle,” she mused quietly behind him, and he smiled when he felt her hand on his back, the warmth and thrum of her power as she pushed her youki into him, offering to help in her own way. “And that pretty red and gold flower you grew before we crossed into Canada.”

“Spanish Flag vines,” he told her, smiling as he gripped one of the branches he’d grown, feeling Amaya’s youki wrap around his as the vines emerged from the tree. “I just grew those to mark the path we were on,” he told her, and felt the shift in her youki.

“They were pretty,” she maintained with an amused tone. He chuckled in reply.

Honeysuckle and Spanish Flags, flowering plants that were normally thin and delicate grew thick as rope, wrapping over and under the branches, turning the outline of the oblong bowl into a floral hammock. He sat back as he reached for the bag containing the clothes Amaya had packed for them, as well as the blankets she always made sure to take with them. He smiled as he pulled out the bear pelt, laying it fur side up, before reaching for the quilt Amaya had made as a gift for Vanessa on her first birthday.

“Here,” Amaya said, reaching out to take the quilt, and he turned, watching as she tucked the blanket over their daughter inside her nest. “It’s going to turn cold tonight.”

“Colder than it is now,” Satoshi agreed with a sigh, watching as his breath misted in the air in front of him. “Tomorrow, I’m going to teach our daughter how to hunt. I know you still think she’s too young,” he said when she looked back at him with an arched brow as she climbed into the hammock-style nest he’d made for them, “and yes, she already knows how to catch fish by hand, but it’s time. This is a skill she needs to know, especially when we’re on the run like this. If something happens, Amaya, if she gets separated from us, or if something happens to us, I have to know that she can survive on her own in the wild. That she has the knowledge and skill to catch her own meals, to skin the kill and turn the pelts into clothing or shoes, or . . .”

He grew silent when he felt the weight of Amaya’s emotions and her youki wrap around him as she tried to comfort him. Her concern drew his attention to her, his eyes lifting to meet her gaze.

“What do you think will happen?” she asked as he climbed in beside her, kissed her brow when she curled against him, and smiled when she pulled the quilt over them.

“Everything. Nothing.” He sighed as he pulled her close, wrapping her tightly in his arms and holding onto her as though his very sanity depended on it. Maybe it did, he allowed. “Those that chased us near the border have found us twice more since, and I worry constantly about the day when we’re no longer with her, about what and when it will be that we’re taken from her. It’s not just about those chasing after us, my love. Sooner or later the Tai Youkai will figure out what happened in L.A. and a hunter will come. And then what will we do?”

“He’s the one that started us running out here to begin with,” she told him, sniffling as she thumped her fist against his chest. He barely felt the strike. “It was the human tribes who took us in and gave us refuge all those centuries ago,” she reminded him, and he kissed her hair as he felt her ire rise, her fear giving way to sorrow. “It’s always been humans who have given us aid, from the tribe on that island after we fled Japan the night you ran from your father—”

“Vanuatu,” he supplied, petting her hair when she sniffled.

“To the tribes we met when we first settled in this region almost three hundred years ago—”

“The Chumash tribe.” He smiled as he recalled meeting the son of the chief so long ago. “I’ve forgotten what they called you, but they took us in because you could lift your voice in a song and the whales sang back. You could speak with the whales, you guided them in learning to hunt with the tribe, to drive the fish near them so they could eat.”

“And you grew the earth, replenished what was lost that year due to the fires,” she reminded him.

“That old medicine man said they had prayed for us, that the Great Spirit sent us to them.”

They had stayed with the tribe almost fifty years, long enough that the humans had truly believed they were supernatural beings sent by their Great Spirits. It pained him that they hadn’t been able to protect the people later on, learning only after the fact, that the village had been destroyed by white settlers less than a year after they’d left. He knew Amaya was thinking about that, too, the loss of their friends something that she had never truly been able to accept. The silence that fell between them was heavy, filled with memories weighted as much by peace as they were by pain. For every moment of happiness, of goodness, in their lives, it felt that there were at least five more shrouded in darkness and despair.

“Satoshi,” she called to him. “What if . . . What if he doesn’t kill you? What if the Tai Youkai keeps you alive . . . in order to have me, as that man you met with told you he would?”

“Should that ever happen, Amaya,” he said, his voice low, his tone full of resignation and resolve. “I will set you free.”

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

**  
**

_“Mama?” Amaya turned her eyes away from the rain that was dripping through the tree tops, dancing upon the leaves before falling down to mist over her skin. “You’re not sleeping.”_

_“No, I suppose I’m not,” Amaya answered, her lips turning up in a wistful smile. “I love these cold rains,” she mused, meeting her daughter’s eyes for just a moment before turning her face back up to the sky. “Did I ever tell you that?”_

_She smiled when Vanessa shook her head, humming her reply, and reached out to pluck her daughter from her nest. Wrapping her arms around the girl, Amaya kissed her daughter’s hair and hugged her close._

_“Rains like this, cold and gentle and so fast it’s almost more like mist,” she mused, blinking as the raindrops landed on her closed eyelids, beading on the ends of her dark lashes. “It reminds me of being back in the ocean.”_

_“Mama?”_

_“Yes, baby?”_

_“You can swim really good, right?” Vanessa asked, and Amaya frowned as she looked down at the girl in her arms. She nodded as she met her daughter’s gaze. “Why won’t you swim in the water with me? You wash, but you won’t swim.”_

_Amaya took a deep breath as she nodded solemnly, knowing the question was inevitable. “I don’t swim because the desire to be in my true form is too great. To spend more than what’s necessary to get clean in a natural body of water, to swim in any water . . . the pond . . . a lake . . . a pool . . . I want so badly to take my youkai form, to be one with the water again.”_

_“So, why don’t you?” Vanessa asked innocently, and Amaya closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath and hoping the rain would hide the tears she didn’t want her daughter to see._

_“Because, my sweet girl,” she answered softly, her voice shaking. “I’ve been out of the water and in this form too long. If ever I were to take my youkai form—my_ true _form—again, I would never be able to change back. I would never be able to hold you again. The water is where I was born, and the water is where I will die.” She breathed in deeply, releasing a heavy breath, not quite a sigh, as she hugged Vanessa close. “Remember this always: no matter how much you hurt, even when you feel like you’re dying inside, you do everything it takes to make the ones you love smile. And you make sure that you do everything you can to do what’s best for them—always.”_

_“Always?” Vanessa asked, and Amaya offered a pouting bittersweet smile._

_“Always. Even when it hurts so much you feel like screaming. What matters the most is that the ones you love are happy.”_

_“I’ll make you happy, Mama,” Vanessa promised as she snuggled closer, and Amaya kissed her hair._

_“Oh, princess,” she laughed softly. “You always make me happy.”_

Amaya blinked as the memory faded, her pale blue gaze focusing out on the sunlight reflecting off the pond, the gentle breeze rippling over the surface of the water whispering through the tree around her. It was peaceful here, quiet. She tipped her head back against the tree behind her, closing her eyes as the warmth of the sun cascaded over her, soothing her as she tried to force the memories back. If she could just forget her life before Satoshi, push her memories of the ocean down far enough that they would be nothing more than the shadows left behind by dreams, then maybe she could pretend that her daughter could do the same.

_‘Do you really want to think about that now?’_

Amaya gasped softly as she blinked. _‘Where have you been?’_

_‘I’m sorry, May,’_ her youkai-voice responded, sighing heavily. _‘I’ve just been really tired. I don’t think you’ve realized it.’_

_‘Realized what?’_ Amaya asked, frowning with worry at the sound of her youkai’s exhausted tone.

_‘Satoshi’s been marking the ground and the trees with his youki like tripwire to look out for any strange youkai, but_ you’ve _been the one holding the barrier up around the three of you at night to shield your presence, not him. It’s exhausting.’_

Amaya shook her head. _‘I can’t use my power alone. I can’t even take my energy form unless Satoshi takes his first—and a barrier?  I’ve tried, but I—”_

_‘You can if the desire is strong enough, and the desire of a mother to protect her child or a youkai to protect their mate? There is nothing stronger.’_

_‘But I don’t feel tired, I feel . . .  I don’t know what I feel anymore,’_ Amaya said, her brows drawing together at the sound of her youkai-voice’s tired laugh.

_‘How many nights have you been unable to sleep because you can’t take your eyes off of Vanessa or Tosh? How afraid have you been to close your eyes because you’re scared they’ll disappear? How many days have you travelled around feeling numb—empty—and not knowing why? How often have you felt like crying? And even though you know that the vines Vanessa creates at night are because she’s afraid, because she needs that constant connection to you and her father, how much does it comfort you to feel those tiny little tendrils wrapped around your wrist when she’s sleeping?’_

Amaya lifted her hands to her face, scrubbing her palms down over her cheeks as she shook her head. She couldn’t deny the truth in her youkai’s words. From the moment they’d fled their house in Montana, she hadn’t slept at night, waiting to rest until the morning when Satoshi and Vanessa were awake and moving about. To sleep when there was no one awake to guard her mate and child, it was a risk she couldn’t take. She couldn’t lose her family. She’d come too close to that more than once already and those attacks had always come at night.

She flinched as her breath caught in her throat, flashes of memories she wished could be forgotten cascading through her mind. Tears pricked behind her eyes, and when she blinked to force them back, one rolled down her cheek. Two and half years ago, barely the blink of an eye for youkai, those that were hunting her family had gotten close—too close. Her daughter had been taken, and in trying to get her away from those that would do her harm, she had been taken as well.

She could still feel the pain of the encounter, the terror of not knowing where she was. The blind panic that she had felt—being able to hear her daughter crying out for her, but not being able to see her, or get to her—it was still there when she closed her eyes. She lifted her hands, rubbing away the ghostly ache of the leather bands around her wrists, cuffs that had held her tightly in place while her daughter had cried for her . . . while she had suffered the loss of the child carried inside her. It was the one memory that held the most power, and the one that she and her mate had made a vow never to speak of.

She knew Satoshi understood her fear, knew that he felt it as well, but what could they really do? How could they make their daughter understand why they were so adamant about her staying near them without telling her the truth and scaring her further? The decision Satoshi had made, she had never really known if it was the right one, but looking back on it now, she didn’t know that she would have done things any differently, either.

_“We’re all safe now,” Satoshi said, his voice steady even though his hands were shaking, tear tracks on his face._

_“Papa?” Vanessa mumbled as she woke._

_“I’m right here, Ness,” he soothed, meeting Amaya’s gaze before they both looked down on the almost-three-year-old child between them. “We’re both here with you.”_

_“Mama?” the little girl called out, her quiet voice muffled as she rubbed her eyes with her balled up fists. “I dreamed a shadow had me, Papa, and then Mama was crying.”_

_“It’s all right, my little forest sprite. It was just a dream.”_

_Her little brow scrunched up as she looked at her mother. “But . . . But Mama was pregnant . . . where’s my sister?” she asked, reaching out to touch Amaya’s flat stomach. Amaya flinched back, catching her daughter’s hand before she could touch her._

_“It was just a dream,” Satoshi repeated, his tone a little sterner, even as his voice remained soft. “Your mother was never pregnant. It was just a dream.”_

_Amaya looked up sharply at her mate, her eyes wide, and shook her head. “Sato—”_

_“Do you want her to grow up with those memories?” he hissed fiercely, his voice only loud enough that she could hear him. “Do you want her to remember what happened? Better to convince her it was a dream and have the memories be forgotten than to have her growing up always looking over her shoulder. Just let it be a nightmare for her.”_

_“And when they come after us again?” she protested, knowing they would never truly be safe._

_“Then we’ll do what we have to—convince her it was another nightmare . . . or make it an adventure. It’s better for her to grow up believing the shadows chasing us are just make believe,” he said as he looked back at Vanessa, watching as their daughter slept. “The last thing she needs is to grow up knowing that the monsters and nightmares are real.”_

_“So, what? If she ever asks or wakes up screaming in the night, what do we tell her then?”_

_“That it was just a nightmare. It’s all just a nightmare.”_

Amaya shook her head as her chin trembled and tears stung at her eyes. That night had been the first time Vanessa had grown the vines she created while sleeping, her daughter never seeming to be aware of it. Two small wispy tendrils had grown from the earth on either side of Vanessa, her daughter’s hand resting against the grass and soil where she’d lain sleeping, to wrap around her wrist and her mate’s. Every night since, Vanessa had grown the vines, reaching out to them in her sleep and making certain they were still there, holding onto them until she woke, the tendrils pulling back into the earth only seconds before her daughter opened her eyes as she would begin to wake. All of that had stopped a few weeks after they’d moved into the house they’d just been forced to abandon.

But that first night, almost three months ago after they led fled their house and left their car to continue on foot, Vanessa had started growing the vines again. Whether they slept on the ground, in a tree as they were now, or even spent the night in a barn as they had a few times, small tiny vines would rise out of the dirt or grass or hay to wind around their wrists, connecting them to their daughter. Even with the earth cold and frozen, she was able to do so, but only in her sleep. That alone spoke of her daughter’s fear, her uncertainty. And whether Vanessa was willing to admit it, or not, Amaya knew that the vines meant she was scared, maybe even terrified, and doing her best to pretend that she wasn’t.

“Aw, Ellie, I miss you so much.”

Amaya blinked as she was pulled from her thoughts and turned her attention down to the human man sitting below her on the ground. He had wandered from the house some time ago after Satoshi had left to take Vanessa hunting with him, but she hadn’t paid the human man any attention until now. She frowned as she moved forward on the branch, stretching out across it as she laid down on the long arm of the tree to peer down at the man and the picture he held. The woman was beautiful, she thought. Definitely human, and from the looks of it, the woman had been thirty or forty when the photo had been taken.

“You were my girl for so long, and then the cancer came and took you away,” he said. A soft sigh fell from her as her brows drew together and she pressed her fingertips against her lips as she listened to him speak to his lost love. “You were always stronger than I was. You were never scared of anything. I keep waiting, Ellie. Do you remember? Before you died that night, you promised to come back to me, to let me know you were okay. You said you’d make one single perfect white rose grow down by the water’s edge, that way I would know it was you. You were in so much pain, and you asked me to help make it stop and I . . . Oh, Ellie, tell me I did the right thing?”

Amaya gasped softly as fresh tears pricked behind her eyes, tickled in her nose. She looked back over her shoulder when she felt her mate’s and daughter’s presences coming closer to her, her mate’s youki twining around hers once more. Amaya smiled at the gentle vibrations of the tree beneath her as her mate climbed into the high boughs out of sight of the human man and moved to join her on the branch she was perched on. She felt the soothing brush of her daughter’s youki against her own, the child wrapping her energy around hers in a way that felt as though they were holding hands, the silent communication soothing her. She met Satoshi’s gaze, tears blurring her vision, and watched as a gentle smile tipped up the edges of his lips, her mate offering her a slow nod.

“No rabbit?” she asked quietly, keeping her voice a whisper.

“No,” he whispered back, a lopsided smile tipping his lips as he shook his head. “Vanessa found a friend, though,” he told her.

“A friend?” she asked, frowning as she shook her head, pouting curiously.

“You’ll meet her,” he grinned. “We also found an abandoned hunter’s cabin about a mile or so from here. It’s been decades, at least, since anyone lived there, but it’s got a stream full of fish running behind it, there’s plenty of good rabbits and deer for hunting, and it’s surrounded by dense forest that makes for a good cover. It’s going to need some work before it’s habitable, though. It’s got a wood burning stove and a fireplace. I’ll need to make a mortar, some of the bricks on the fireplace are loose, and it looks like there was once a cooking hearth built into one of the walls, but I can fix all that. I thought maybe you could work on cleaning out the cobwebs and seeing what’s salvageable in the cabin while I teach Vanessa how to hunt and clean a kill, how to make sundried bricks and build a house. It should hold us for a while, a year maybe, as long as no one comes looking for it. I—Vanessa?”

Amaya’s eyes widened as she looked at the branches around them, searching for her daughter. She could still feel her daughter’s youki wrapped around her own, but she couldn’t see her, and just as she opened her mouth to cry out, she heard her child’s voice down below. A choked laughing sob came from her, her hand over her mouth to muffle the sound as she stared down at the ground below, her daughter’s cherry wood hair shining in the sunlight. She frowned at the golden-brown bundle in Vanessa’s arms, and turned her head back quickly to look at Satoshi, meeting his sheepish grin when he shrugged, before looking back down at their daughter.

And in that moment, she knew that the only reason neither she or her mate tried to snatch Vanessa away and run was because the man was human, and for all she could feel from him, she knew he wasn’t dangerous. She knew that they had to offer just a little bit of trust to the human, no matter how much it scared them both to do so. The very last thing Amaya ever wanted to do was raise her daughter to fear the world. The very least she could do was teach her daughter how to trust a human.

“Why are you so sad?” Vanessa asked, and Amaya released a choked breath as she sat up, a tear rolling down her cheek at the innocence of her daughter’s words.

The man turned his head to meet her daughter’s gaze, his aura gentle and curious, even as Amaya felt the depth of his sorrow. “I lost my Ellie a year ago, today. She was everything to me,” he answered, his heavy tone sad. “That’s a pretty tiny little baby bear you’ve got there,” he said, and Vanessa nodded.

“Her mama wasn’t moving, and she smelled bad,” Vanessa told him. Amaya sniffled back the sting of tears as she touched her fingertips to her lips, her brow furrowing as she released a broken sigh. “I can help you find her—your Ellie,” she offered as she adjusted her grip on the bear cub. “I know how to track.”

Amaya released a choked breath, leaning back when she felt Satoshi wrap his arms around her from behind, a tear rolling down her cheek at the innocence of her daughter’s words. Her lips trembled as she smiled, felt the gentle pressure of her mate’s kiss against her temple.

“Aw, little one,” the man said, clicking his tongue as he reached out, touched the cub’s fur before tucking Vanessa’s hair behind her ear. “My Ellie’s gone away somewhere we can’t go.”

“Like her mama?” Vanessa asked, bowing her head down over the bear cub she held.

“Just like,” the man answered sadly. “What color was her mama?”

“Dark like cinnamon,” she answered, and the man nodded. “I don’t think Ellie would want you to be sad.” They were both silent for a moment, the bear cub offering a quiet whine as it moved, snuggling closer to Vanessa. “Did she like flowers?” Vanessa asked, and Amaya turned to look back at Satoshi, seeing the caution in his eyes, the bittersweet smile twisting his lips.

“Just a single white rose,” he told her. “That was all she ever asked for. She never wanted a lot, just one perfect rose.”

Vanessa hummed thoughtfully as she nodded. “Close your eyes,” she told the man. “Close your eyes and think of Ellie,” she instructed.

Amaya couldn’t see his face, but she was certain the man had followed her daughter’s instruction. She watched Vanessa kneel in the grass, holding the cub securely in one arm as she buried the fingers of one hand in the soil up to the third knuckles and closed her eyes. She could feel the rise of her daughter’s power and closed her eyes as she reached out her youki to Vanessa, offering the power to her, and felt her daughter respond. She knew her daughter didn’t need the borrowed power to do this, Amaya thought as she opened her eyes and glanced back over her shoulder when she felt Satoshi move away from her, but she wanted to be a part of this special gift her daughter was offering the grieving man.

Her lips turned up in a gentle smile as she watched Satoshi drop from the tree silently to land beside their daughter. He knelt behind her, his hands in the earth over hers as he dropped a kiss to her head. Amaya looked out toward the water’s edge, watching as three winding green stems emerged from the ground, braiding around each other as they climbed higher before fusing into one single elegantly twisted stalk. The plant was a beautiful dark jade, the leaves glossy and wide, serrated along the edges with thin thorns beneath as though they were bracing them. She watched as it grew taller, small branches stretching out like arms, open and inviting. The top of the plant formed a twisted teardrop, the bulb becoming thicker, wider, until the green leaves parted, the flower blooming to reveal one perfect ivory rose.

She smiled when Satoshi looked up at her, laughing quietly when Vanessa moved closer to the human just enough to kiss his cheek before her father lifted her into his arms and sprang up high into the tree. Amaya laughed quietly as she sniffled, reaching out to touch the tiny cub in her daughter’s arms, the bear almost half her daughter’s size. She smiled as she nodded to Vanessa, watching her climb into her nest with the bear.

“Her friend,” Amaya said, turning to look at Satoshi.

“Her friend,” he affirmed, smiling as he nodded.

“My Ellie,” the man on the ground below said with a gasp, and Amaya felt the tears stinging behind her eyes spill over onto her cheek. “You sent me an angel. You really are okay. Oh, my Ellie.”

“Papa?” Vanessa asked quietly, her tone alarmed as she shook her head. “Papa, he smells funny.”

“I know,” Satoshi replied sadly, keeping his voice soft. “You gave him what he needed.”

“But he smells funny, Papa,” she argued, as Amaya bent over the side of the nest to kiss her daughter’s hair. “Mama?”

“It’s rare,” Amaya told her daughter as she looked down at the man beneath them, the scent of death growing stronger on him. “But sometimes, just sometimes, a human finds their true mate and follows them in death.”

“Why?” Vanessa asked as Amaya turned to meet her gaze.

“Because, my daughter,” she said as she smoothed the tears from Vanessa’s cheeks. “A love that strong know no boundaries, not even death.”

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

**_24 March, 2056_ **

**_Bangor, Maine_ **

_“Gwen, I’m really proud of you,” Ammeline praised as she looked down at the open file on her desk. “Have you looked at any of these? Did anyone show you?” she asked. Gwen blinked as she looked up, shook her head as she met the woman’s gaze. “Take a look.”_

_Gwen frowned as she took the papers Ammeline handed her, holding the woman’s gaze a moment longer before turning her eyes down to study the Scantron sheets. Ninety-eight. Ninety. One-hundred. Ninety-eight. One-hundred-five._

_“Twelve hundred-thirty?” Gwen asked as she looked up from the last sheet, shaking her head in confusion as she met Ammeline’s gaze._

_“Remember that test I had you take on Saturday?” Ammeline asked her. Gwen nodded as she narrowed her eyes in a thoughtful frown._

_“The one with all the older kids—the high schoolers?” Gwen asked._

_Ammeline smiled as she nodded. “I had to talk to the principal and get special permission to have you take the test considering your age. I was curious to see what the results would be and she was, too. The SATs,” she reminded her._

_“And that’s a good score?” Gwen asked curiously._

_“A perfect score is 1600, and a great score is 1400. This score will be recorded in your permanent record, but you will get a chance to retake it in your junior and senior years of high school. All of these scores combined mean that, with your mother’s approval, you can skip a few grades,” Ammeline told her with pride._

_Gwen’s eyes widened as she sat up straighter in her chair. “How many?” she asked with a wide smile._

_The possibilities were endless and in that moment all she wanted to do was jump up and scream. This was what she had been waiting for. As silly as it might sound, Gwen thought, the one thing she wanted more than anything was a way out. Her father had been the one to promise her adventures, promise her that if she put her mind to it, she could do anything. That book he had read to her when she was five years old—The Two Hundred Most Influential Women of All Time—there had been theologians, singer/songwriters, musicians, physicists, scientists, doctors, politicians, ambassadors, ballerinas, war heroines, artists, and so much more. That book had been proof enough that she could do_ anything _she wanted. But in order to do anything she wanted, she had to advance in school._

_“Gwen, did you hear me?” Ammeline asked her with a laugh and Gwen looked up to meet her gaze. “With your mother’s approval, you could skip all the way to the ninth grade.”_

_“I’d be in_ high _school?” Gwen sat back against the chair as she stared at the woman behind the desk with wide eyes. Her smile fell as her brow furrowed, her gaze dropping down to the top of the desk. “Four years of high school until I graduated, Dobby would only be eight—nine at the most.” She shook her head as she met Ammeline’s gaze once more. “Once I graduate, it’ll be expected that I go to college.”_

_“Do you not want to?” Ammeline asked her._

_Gwen sighed as she shook her head. “I don’t want to abandon my brother.”_

Gwen sighed as she blinked the memory away and focused her gaze on the projection screen at the front of the class. Rolling her eyes as she rested her cheek on her balled-up fist, her elbow resting on her desk, she looked down at the paper she’d been writing notes on. She was beyond bored in this class, had already read ahead and had completed the homework assignments for the next three chapters, including the final paper. The only thing she had left to do in this class was take the tests and final exam. None of it was really all that hard.

When the summer break came, if she wanted, she could take courses down at the community college. Typically reserved for makeup courses for students who hadn’t been able to make it to all their classes or had failed enough to have to repeat their classes in order to move forward, Gwen planned to use the summer school courses to move forward in school without having to get her parent’s approval to skip her grades.

That was the hell of it all, she thought as she glanced up at the analogue clock on the wall, wishing for the fifteen minutes she had left in the class to pass by quickly. As much as she wanted to jump forward all the way to ninth grade, to advance the way she knew she could, the cost to do so was too high. The choices weren’t fair, not at all. In order to get what she wanted, she would have to turn her back on the ones she loved, the ones who had supported her. But in order to keep those same people in her life, she would be forced to disappoint them, to be less than what she was. Nothing in this world came for free, her mother had made that clear.

_Gwen sighed as she sat down at the desk inside her bedroom at Ammeline and J.J.’s house and set her phone in the charging dock before activating the video messaging app. The tightness in her chest, the difficulty she felt breathing, her racing heart and sweaty palms, all of it spoke to the anxiety she felt in making this phone call. Every cell in her body was telling her that this was pointless, that either her mother would say no or she would ask for something she wasn’t willing to give, but the anger that she had felt for the past week over not making the call had driven her to this moment._

_“You have five minutes,” Patricia Dobson said as she answered the call out of sight of the camera. “I’m prepping for an interview so if you can’t hear me, just shout.”_

_Gwen sighed as she shook her head. “I took some tests at school,” Gwen said, raising her voice to be heard. “I did pretty good.”_

_“You called me because you did good on some tests?” her mother replied incredulously. “You have friends for that.”_

_“I called because I did well enough that the school says I can skip a few grades but . . . “_

_“But what?” the woman asked as she appeared in front of the camera, securing an earing in place. “You wouldn’t have called me unless you_ had _to.”_

_Gwen stared at her through narrowed eyes. “Why do you look younger?”_

_“Botox, hair dye, and damn good makeup,” she replied dismissively. “Stop stalling. I don’t have the time and I really don’t care enough to keep this conversation going. What do you want?”_

_“I have to have my parent’s permission to skip the grades.” Gwen sighed as she sat back, waiting for her mother’s answer and watched as the woman’s eyes moved from side to side, taking in the bedroom behind her._

_“Whose house is that?” she asked, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “A window with southern exposure, the color of paint on the walls, even the posters,” she scoffed. “That’s not the bedroom at my house.”_

_“Ammeline and J.J.’s,” Gwen replied softly, reminding herself to keep her expression as neutral as possible. Any emotional reaction and her mother would zero in on it and use it to her advantage, she always had. “They set up a room for each of us in their house.”_

_Gwen watched as her mother’s expression turned from suspicious, to cold, to triumphant, all in a matter of seconds. “I’ll sign the papers to grant your request to skip the grades,_ if _. . .” her mother offered, stressing the last word to make it clear that there would be a cost to be paid for the request._

_“If what?” Gwen asked suspiciously._

_“If you move out of their house and cut all ties with them,” she said, the tone of her voice reasonable even though the offer wasn’t._

_“. . . What?” Gwen shook her head as she stared at the woman on the screen. “No!” she denied vehemently, offended by the barter._

_“Think about it. I’ll give you until the last day of school, that’s what—May something?” she asked, with a flick of her wrist, the thin metal bracelets clinging together._

_“June third, “Gwen replied. “We’ve had a few snow days that we have to make up.”_

_“Make up your mind and call me back,” her mother said as though she knew the answer she expected to hear. “It’s them, or your school. You can’t have both.”_

_The call ended a second later, the video call app closing as Gwen felt the sharp sting of tears behind her eyes. In order to advance in school, she had to give up the one thing that made her feel happy and loved and connected to her father again. But if she didn’t give it all up, she would be held back in classes where she didn’t belong._

‘But it isn’t just you that decision would hurt,’ _her conscience pointed out._ ‘Cutting all ties with Ammeline and J.J. hurts Dobby, too, and it hurts them.’

‘What do I do?’ _Gwen whispered back as though the voice in her mind somehow held the answers._

‘The better question is, do you tell Ammeline about the offer your mother made?’

_Shaking her head as she stood from the desk in her room, Gwen moved to the door of her bedroom and opened it just enough to peer outside. The muffled shrieks grew louder, her brother’s laughter bouncing off the walls as he giggled and kicked his feet. He was riding on J.J.’s back, the man pretending to be some mythical war-bear that Dobby was riding into battle, and her brother was loving every second of it. Her father had often played the role of horse for Dobby, for her as well, and in that moment, she knew._

_No matter what happened, cutting ties with Ammeline and J.J. would destroy what little part of herself she had left, the part that wasn’t wrapped up in responsibilities and care giving and academia. But she couldn’t tell them about the offer, either. She knew how much something like that could hurt them, and she wouldn’t do that to the two people in her life who actually made her feel like family. She blinked as she jerked back, not having noticed Ammeline’s approach until the woman was standing directly in front of her._

_“Hey, get all your homework done?” Ammeline asked and Gwen nodded as she bit her lip. “All right then. Go grab your bag.”_

_“My bag?” Gwen asked with a shake of her head._

_“You have been staring at the posters down in the coffee shop next to the school for weeks. I got us tickets to the off-Broadway production of Annie. Just a girls’ night, you and me. The boys will have to fend for themselves.”_

The ringing of the bell jerked Gwen out of the memory and she sighed as she cleared her desk, packing the notebooks and pens back into her school bag. That had been almost two months ago, she thought as she stood and swung the bag onto her shoulder. She still hadn’t told Ammeline or J.J. that she had called her mother or the offer the woman had made her. How in the hell could she tell anyone about that? Saying it all out loud . . . it all just seemed cruel.

“Hey Carter.”

Gwen cringed at the sound of Jackson Pruitt’s voice coming from behind her, narrowing her eyes at the boy’s gloating tone. She kept her back turned to them as she continued walking down the hall toward her locker, refusing to give them any indication that she was listening to them. Giving them her attention had only served to add fuel to their fire and she was damn tired of getting burned. She honestly didn’t care what they said about her, she could care even less when they spoke about her mother. The problem was, they knew that, too. They had kept poking at her until they found her weak spots—her brother and her dead father—and once they found out what made her tick, they hadn’t stopped coming after her. Not once.

“Jackson,” Carter greeted his friend, their voices closer than before, and Gwen knew they were walking directly behind her. “My parents were fighting last night,” he said and Gwen released an inward sigh of relief. For once they weren’t talking about her. “Seems my mom is absolutely convinced that my dad had an affair.”

“You’re kidding right?” Jackson asked as Gwen stopped in front of her locker and dropped her schoolbag to floor before spinning the combination dial built into the door.

“Nope,” Carter replied.

Gwen frowned at the sound of his sigh. Why did it sound mocking? And why were they still so close to her? She just wanted to turn around and yell at them to go away but clenched her jaw as she refrained from doing so. The only thing that yelling at them would accomplish was letting them know that they were getting to her. Closing her eyes briefly as she opened her locker door, she withdrew the mathematics text book she needed and lifted her backpack up to rest on her thigh, her knee pressed against the locker beneath hers. It didn’t take her long to open the bag and put the book inside it, removing the history text from her bag, she placed the book in her locker and shut the door, spinning the dial on the door to secure the lock.

“You’re kidding?” Jackson said, laughing as moved to lean against the lockers beside Gwen.

She rolled her eyes as she swung her backpack up onto her shoulder, fisting her hand around the padded strap as she turned to walk away.

“Your mom actually thinks your dad was having an affair with Mrs. Dobson?” Jackson asked with a laughed.

_‘Tell me something I don’t know,’_ Gwen thought as she struggled to ignore them. _‘Pretty hard to have any respect for your mother when you find other men’s clothing in the house.’_

She couldn’t count the number of times she had found pink shirts in the kitchen, on the stairs, or stuffed behind the back of the couch. Her father had always worn earth tones—dark browns and greens and black, the occasional grey or dark blue, but never pink. It wasn’t just the color that was wrong, but the size, too. Her father was well over six feet tall, whoever wore those shirts was smaller. Each and every time she found one of those horrible shirts, her father was always away at work. There were times that she hated her mother, wishing for nothing more than for the woman to abandon her and her bother all together. At least if that happened, Ammeline and J.J. could adopt them for real.

“My mom said the only way that she knew Gwen _wasn’t_ his kid was because she looks too much like the Captain. But Dobby,” Carter said a little too gleefully. Gwen froze as she felt the hairs on her arms rise, the anger she felt warming her cheeks. “Mom says that he looks too much like Gwen and not enough like his mother.”

“What does that mean?” Jackson asked.

“What do you think it means?” Carter returned. “Gwen’s as much a slut as her mother is, at least that’s what my mom shouted. Dobby’s Gwen’s son.”

Gwen scoffed as she furrowed her brow, amused by her own disbelief. They couldn’t possibly be _that_ dumb, could they? Yes, she sighed silently to herself, yes, they could be. Most of the boys she knew in this school assumed that girls were born already able to have babies. Complete idiots, the lot of them.

“Who does she think the father is?” Jackson asked, and Gwen moved to step away.

“Does it matter?” Carter returned. “It’s only a matter of time before they take him away. They’ll never let her keep him. That’s what my Dad said.”

Gwen didn’t think as she turned around on her heel, her storm cloud blue eyes almost black, she was so angry. She should have walked away sooner, but she hadn’t, and even if she had, she knew they would have kept following her. The thought of hitting them both was tempting, but she knew that they would just keep coming after her. In order to end their annoyance, she had to destroy them, and if there was only one thing her mother had ever taught her, it was how to destroy a person from the inside out.

“Carter,” Gwen said, her tone forcibly pleasant. “Perhaps, if your mother spent more time actually focusing on being a wife and less time trying to figure out what the latest gossip around town was, then your dad wouldn’t have such a problem keeping it in his pants.”

“Oohhh,” Carter mocked as he held up his hands in defense. “Kitty’s got her claws out. What are you gonna do little kitty? Hit me?”

“You’re too stupid to learn anything from it, so why bother? It’s a miracle you haven’t been forced to repeat this grade, too. In fact,” she paused as she placed a finger against her lips in thought as she tipped her head to one side before focusing her gaze on him, refusing to let him look away from her. “How many grades have you had to repeat so far? Three, isn’t it? That’s why you’re the _oldest_ kid in your class. Not the tallest. Not the most popular, and most certainly _not_ the smartest. You’re just . . . the oldest. You’re living proof that failure really does beget failure. I’m surprised your parents haven’t put you in special ed classes, but that would require they actually paid attention to you. Lord knows that your mom sleeps around more than mine does, is there anyone in this town she _hasn’t_ spread her legs for?”

Gwen heard the sharp gasp coming from somewhere behind her but chose to ignore it. She was beyond done dealing with these two. If they wanted to come after her, she was going to make it clear exactly who they were dealing with.

“Well my father—"

“I really don’t give a great goddamn _what_ your father said,” Gwen cut Jackson off, turning her gaze on him as she ignored Carter for the moment. Crossing her arms over her chest, she narrowed her eyes and pinned Jackson with a malevolent grin. “It’s no wonder you and Carter hang out so much together. Hell, I wouldn’t doubt it one bit if you two were related or even related to some of the other kids here. It’s clear to _anyone_ in this town that your father likes to sleep around and there’s more than enough evidence to give rise to the question of your actual paternity. Especially considering the fact that your mother sleeps around as much if not more than he does.”

Ignoring the voice in the back of her mind that was telling enough was enough, she kept going, kept digging as she struck them both deep.

“I mean, have you looked at yourself?” Gwen continued as though talking about nothing more important than the weather outside. “Dark hair, dark eyes, slightly more tan than normal complexion, meanwhile your mother is a blue-eyed blonde who can barely tan, and your dad’s a redhead who’s so pale he practically glows in the dark. You’re someone’s kid, all right, but definitely not _both_ of theirs. That’s why you’re in so many clubs and after school programs. Neither one of them can stand looking at the mistake they couldn’t take back. It’s no wonder you’re an only child. Hell, after that mess, how could they even be willing to trust each other, let alone stand to look at each other?”

She took in a deep breath as she watched Jackson’s eyes cloud over and knew that she had hit him where it hurt. Turning her attention back to Carter, she eyed him up and down.

“Completely pathetic. You’re not even worth my time, or your parents’ time either as far as that goes. I hope you like being below average. Even your own family knows you’ll never amount to anything. It’s why they ignore you so much, _sweetie_ ,” she mocked him, watching as his eyes clouded over, too.

Both boys were ready to cry and she’d never even had to raise her hand, or her voice.

“ _Gwenhwyfar Dobson!_ ” Ammeline barked, her voice full of anger. Gwen sighed inwardly as she narrowed her eyes “My office, now!”

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

 

Ammeline frowned as she looked up from the paper she was reading, the sound of the voices carrying down the hall toward her familiar. She knew the boy’s voice—Carter Munsen. Not only was he one of the worst troublemakers the school had to offer, but he was also best friends with Jackson Pruitt, the boy who had saw fit to harass Gwen about her dead father a few months ago. Releasing a heavy annoyed sigh when she heard Jackson’s voice speak next, she shook her head and stuffed the paper into the messenger bag she was wearing.

_‘They never learn, do they?’_ she thought with irritation.

“Oohhh,” Carter mocked as he held up his hands in defense. “Kitty’s got her claws out. What are you gonna do little kitty? Hit me?”

_‘Ammeline,’_ her youkai-voice called to her with an air of caution.

_‘Son of a bitch,’_ she cursed, catching sight of Gwen’s reflection in one of the classroom windows.

“You’re too stupid to learn anything from it, so why bother? It’s a miracle you haven’t been forced to repeat this grade, too. In fact,” she said, the girl pausing for effect. Ammeline’s steps faltered as she listened to Gwen, recognizing the tone in her voice as one she’d heard from the girl’s mother before; it was always a sign that she was going in for the proverbial kill. “How many grades have you had to repeat so far? Three, isn’t it? That’s why you’re the _oldest_ kid in your class. Not the tallest. Not the most popular, and most certainly _not_ the smartest. You’re just . . . the oldest. You’re living proof that failure really does beget failure. I’m surprised your parents haven’t put you in special ed classes, but that would require they actually paid attention to you. Lord knows that your mom sleeps around more than mine does, is there anyone in this town she _hasn’t_ spread her legs for?”

She should have picked up on the girl’s scent sooner, she cursed herself, moving forward as quickly as she dared among the humans milling the halls. It seemed that both boys had decided to team up on Gwen this time and that was the last thing the girl needed. She had finally gotten Gwen to a point where she wasn’t watching over her brother every single second, where she was actually taking time for herself and grieving as she needed to. And the thought of the girl going back into a defensive, emotionally closed off state made her proverbial hackles rise.

  “Well my father—”

“I really don’t give a great goddamn _what_ your father said,” Gwen cut Jackson off, her steady voice only making Ammeline bristle as she rounded the corner of the hall to see Gwen facing off against the boys. Jackson and Carter were standing with their backs against the lockers, Gwen standing in front of them. “It’s no wonder you and Carter hang out so much together. Hell, I wouldn’t doubt it one bit if you two were related or even related to some of the other kids here. It’s clear to _anyone_ in this town that your father likes to sleep around and there’s more than enough evidence to give rise to the question of your actual paternity. Especially considering the fact that your mother sleeps around as much if not more than he does.”

Ammeline’s eyes widened as her mouth dropped open, her feet stopping of their own accord as she stared at the scene unfolding in front of her in utter disbelief.

“I mean, have you looked at yourself?” Gwen continued as though talking about nothing more important than the weather outside. “Dark hair, dark eyes, slightly more tan than normal complexion, meanwhile your mother is a blue-eyed blonde who can barely tan, and your dad’s a redhead who’s so pale he practically glows in the dark. You’re _someone’s_ kid, all right, but definitely not _both_ of theirs. That’s why you’re in so many clubs and after school programs. Neither one of them can stand looking at the mistake they couldn’t take back. It’s no wonder you’re an only child. Hell, after that mess, how could they even be willing to trust each other, let alone stand to look at each other?”

_‘Oh . . . my . . . God.’_

_‘And I thought her mother was bad,’_ her youkai-voice said with disbelief. _‘She’s not even trying to pull any punches at all. She’s going straight in for the kill. Don’t just stand there, Ammeline! Do something!’_

_‘Who the hell is that girl?’_ she asked in disbelief.

_‘That’s the girl her mother taught her to be,’_ her youkai replied with a sigh.

“Completely pathetic. You’re not even worth my time, or your parents’ time either as far as that goes. I hope you like being below average. Even your own family knows you’ll never amount to anything. It’s why they ignore you so much, _sweetie_ ,” she said, inflecting just enough of a purr into her voice to make her words sound soothing, and Ammeline knew that what she said would have a deeper affect on the boy because of it.

“ _Gwenhwyfar Dobson!_ ” Ammeline barked, her eyes wide and full of anger. “My office, now!”

Gwen turned around to look at her, lifted her chin as she stared at Ammeline as though she were daring her to make a move. The short snarling bark that came from her throat wasn’t what she had intended, but she watched as Gwen blinked and turned, walking in the direction of the administration offices, the girl seeming to understand the command issued in the canine language. It took every ounce of control she had not to slam her office door as she followed Gwen inside the room, keeping her back turned to the human child as she struggled to rein in her temper.

“What in the _hell_ were you thinking?” she asked, her eyes closed and palm pressed flat against the door. Ammeline shook her head as she spun around, pinning Gwen with a disapproving stare. “We have talked about this, Gwen. You have to ignore them when they start up like that and—”

“And _what_?” Gwen snapped as she stared at her in defiance. “You think I _didn’t_ try that? I did! They kept going and kept following me and I _was_ ignoring them just fine until they decided to start in on Dobby! I don’t care what they say about me, but I _will not_ allow them to run their mouths about my brother! He is _off limits_.”

Ammeline sighed as she walked toward her desk, lifting the strap for her messenger bag over her head as she moved, and set the bag on the floor beside her chair. Turning around slowly, she walked in front of her desk only to lean back against it and crossed her arms over her chest as she stared at the girl.

“I’m not your mother, so I can’t make the decision to pull you out of this school and put you in another one. But that won’t change the fact that there are bullies everywhere and eventually you will have to learn how to deal with them—with _out_ becoming the bully yourself,” she said. Bowing her head as she pinched the bridge of her nose, Ammeline nodded to herself and looked up. “As the school counselor, I do have to issue you detention for what happened out there.” She raised her hand to silence Gwen when the girl opened her mouth to protest. “As the person currently taking care of you,” she said as she moved to sit on the couch and sighed. “I am glad that you stood up for yourself and your brother, but I am not happy about the way you did it. Starting after school today, you are going to come to my office each day after school and I will drive you down to the station where J.J. and his team work. You’ll help them with sweeping, cleaning, and anything else they need assistance with for the next two weeks.”

Gwen’s brow furrowed as snapped her attention up to Ammeline. “But Dobby—”

“Dobby will be just fine,” she promised, forestalling any further argument from the girl. “I will pick him up from Mrs. Danielsen’s and bring him back here to my office until I’m done for the day, just like I’ve been doing for the past few months.”

The young girl growled at her as she yanked her schoolbag up off the floor and threw it on her shoulder as she clung to the padded strap. “You’re _not_ my mother!”

“Perhaps not,” Ammeline said as she stared at Gwen, her gaze hard. “But in her efforts to do . . . whatever it is that she’s doing, your mother listed J.J. and I as your temporary guardians while she’s working in another state,” she reminded the girl, her tone daring Gwen to defy her. “Do I wish that I could remove you and your brother from that environment permanently and watch over you as J.J. and I promised your father we would? Yes. But I can’t. For right now, Gwen, you are living under our roof and that means you will follow our rules. Your punishment stands.” Standing from the couch, Ammeline moved to her desk and withdrew a small pink pad from the top center drawer. Jotting down the girl’s name, the time, and her own name and signature, Ammeline tore the top sheet of the hall pass off and handed it to Gwen. “Take this and go to your next class.”

Ammeline clenched her jaw to keep from hissing when Gwen tore the note from her hand, the edge of the paper slicing into her skin. Blowing out a heavy breath as she watched the girl leave, the door slamming behind her, Ammeline fell heavily into the chair behind her.

_‘That could have gone better.’_

_‘All things considered?’_ her youkai remarked. _‘I think it went as well as could be expected. Well, Mom, congratulations. You’ve just had your first real fight with your human daughter.’_

Ammeline rolled her eyes as she leaned her head back against the chai behind her. _‘If only I could make Gwen officially my daughter, I think it would solve a lot of these issues. Each time Patty deigns to show up and pretend to be a mother, she rips Gwen and Dobby away from us only to berate Gwen, and then leave them both again days—sometimes only hours—later. This kind of back and forth is only going to upset her more.’_

_‘Yeah, well, it’s not like you really can do anything legally by the human system. You remember what that lady said when you and J.J. tried to file for legal custodial guardianship.’_

Ammeline shook her head as she repeated the final assessment out loud. “Patricia Dobson has filed official documentation listing J.J. and I as the temporary guardians for her children while she is working in a location that prohibits her being home at the end of the day. As long as she returns to see her children at least once a month, and contacts them by phone or video call at least once every two weeks, child abandonment cannot be legally proven.”

_‘I swear, she only did that to screw with all of you and cover her own ass,’_ her youkai-voice scoffed.

“Preaching to the choir,” Ammeline said aloud as she reached for her cell phone. “Might as well tell J.J. the good news.”

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~  
**

**A.N.:** Dinadanvtli – Cherokee meaning “brother”


	5. Chapter 4

AN: **_The Child of Earth and Sea_** is part of the **Purity** series and set in the current time line of Charity and Ben’s story. Rumiko Takahashi owns Inuyasha and all recognizable characters from the anime, all characters from the Purity universe belong to Sueric, I have simply been granted the honor of taking them out to play for a little while. This series tells the story of Nessa Beaumonte, from the one-shot _Heart of a Warrior,_ and has been written with the approval of, and in collaboration with the original author of the Purity Universe, Sueric.

 

                                                                                                                                                 

 

**The Child of Earth and Sea**

_A Purity Collaboration_

_By_ _WhisperingWolf_

 

Chapter 4

 

 

 

_**Quebec City, Canada**_

 

_I don’t know what the date is, the battery on the phone we carry died long ago, and maybe that’s a good thing. Satoshi always did caution that the people chasing us could track us by it when it was turned on but I insisted we keep it. It was more for security than anything else, and maybe that security existed nowhere else but in my own mind. The more I think about it, the more I realize that my mate was simply allowing me to find safety in a useless device, and no matter how irrational that was, Satoshi never complained, never faulted me for it._

_The way he would look at me sometimes, or look at the phone, I understand now what he was thinking – what he wouldn’t say out loud. We have no one to call. There is no safety net waiting for us, no friend to take us in, no person that we can reach out to. I’m using the last of the ink Satoshi made to write this, and I know that soon enough, he’ll be able to make more, but as sure as I am that my family is safe with me up in the boughs of this tree, is as certain as I am that we will be moving again soon._

_It is yet another worry of mine that Satoshi, by all rights, would be able to dismiss as irrational, but he hasn’t. It took all three of us a little over ten days, working from sunrise to sundown, to fix up the old cabin. Satoshi taught Vanessa how to mix the dirt, dried leaves, bits of crushed rock, and broken twigs with just enough water to make an elastic clay. He taught her how to cut down a small tree – little more than a six-year-old sapling – and break it apart with her claws, trimming and whittling it with her claws to make molds for bricks and curved shingles for the roof. He’s been trying to teach her to use her power to crush small rocks in order to make smaller pieces and even sand, but that has been harder for her to learn._

_Between the two of them, they were able to make enough bricks and shingles in one day to repair the fireplace, the roof, and still have enough left over to make a covered barbeque outside. Vanessa worked right next to him, learning everything he taught her, and making adjustments on her own that made it easier for her to do the same things by her own hand. She even made a thinner wider mold in order to make tiles. I didn’t know what she intended for them at first, neither did her father, until we followed her into the house and watched her set the tiles in place at the bottom of the hearth. She had so much fun with it, too, spending her days caked and covered in mud. Satoshi never chided her once for being dirty, simply laid his hand on top of her head at the end of each day and used his power of the earth to make the dirt fall from her skin and clothes._

_I am so proud of my daughter and how easily she has taken to living like this. She doesn’t complain, she doesn’t cry or whine, or throw fits as I’ve seen other children do. Her youki is always twined around ours, always braided between mine and Satoshi’s. The only time I have felt even the slightest touch of fear from her at all, has been when one of us is too far away for her to touch with her youki, too far away to hear or smell. Her ability with her youki will grow stronger as her power grows stronger and as she grows older, her sense of smell and her hearing will advance as well with her age._

_Even with those small comforts – the knowledge that as she grows older she will be able to feel us the farther away we are – Satoshi’s worry has become my own. What will become of her when we are no longer with her? If we are separated by necessity . . . or by death._

Amaya paused, lifting the carved wood pen away from the page and tipped her head back against the trunk of the tree behind her. Closing her eyes as she folded her lips in over her teeth, she felt the prick of her fangs, tasted the copper of her blood, but was unable to push back the emotions that rose to the surface. Her eyes burned as tears formed, her chin trembling as she took in one shuddering breath after another.

Every waking moment, from the time Vanessa was little more than a year old – just barely old enough to grow the smallest tendril with her burgeoning powers – Amaya and her mate had done everything they could to teach their daughter the skills she would need to survive on her own, giving her the tools she would need to keep herself hidden, to keep herself safe. Vanessa already knew how to use her power to grow her nest to sleep in high up in the trees, she was able to grow the earth to make berry plants, vegetables, and herbs. Satoshi had taught her to do so when she was three, telling the child it would make her mother smile, and it had, but Amaya realized now why he had been so insistent that she learn the skill at such a young age, pushing her far ahead of where most other youkai children would be in the development of their powers.

More and more often of late, Satoshi had urged her to pull back, to stop lending her power to Vanessa, telling her that the child needed to push herself as far as she could in order to force her own power to grow. She had done so reluctantly, part of her feeling that in making Vanessa develop her own strength, encouraging her own independence she was losing the tiny child who relied on her. In return, Amaya had always made it a point that she and her mate made learning fun for Vanessa, made it all seem less urgent, more relaxed, making it something that the girl would want to learn and not something that she felt she was being forced to learn. All the while, the feeling that they weren’t safe was growing stronger and no matter how Amaya tried to hide that feeling, she knew Satoshi felt it, too.

It was why Satoshi had not challenged her when she insisted that they sleep in the trees, using the repaired cabin only when it was raining or cold. For three months they had stayed here, sleeping in the giant ancient pines behind the cabin, the nests they made up in the tree too high to be found by any human seeking a pleasure climb. The branches below and above them had been thickened by her mate and her daughter, hiding them from view, protecting them from the elements, and all the while making their nests stronger. But what should have been comforting to her wasn’t comforting at all, Amaya thought as she blinked, wiping away the fallen tears with the backs of her hands as she returned her attention to the large tome in her lap.

_I didn’t think much of it at the time but on the last day, when all the repairs were done, and the cabin was ready for us, Satoshi took Vanessa with him out to a clearing by the river. The land around it was raised, the waterfall in the distance and the trees surrounding it keeping it hidden from any would be adventurer.. I sat in the grass as I watched him, as he made it a game, and told Vanessa to build herself a small house. He told her that it would be hers because she made it, and it could be as big or as little as she wanted it to be._

_Vanessa, my dear sweet child, was so excited – so proud – to show her father what she had learned, demonstrating what he had taught her. She cut down a sapling on her own, growling each time her claws got stuck. She really does have an adorable growl. I think I’ve heard fiercer raccoons._

_Vanessa trimmed pieces from the tree, cutting and carving and smoothing the pieces into a deep box and others into molds for bricks and shingles and thin tiles. She was careful to pluck only the blades of grass and weeds that she needed, collecting tiny rocks from the river bottom and twigs and dried leaves from the ground to mix in with water and sand she took from the river. It didn’t occur to me then, but it strikes me now, that of everything he taught her to do, Vanessa never needed to use her powers once._

_She formed her bricks and left them to dry. Created her shingles and tiles and left them to dry as well. She made an outline in the grass, using four long pieces of wood she cut from the tree to create a floor – a foundation – and poured clump after clump of the elastic clay inside, using a flat piece of wood to smooth it out and pack it down. Three days it took her, but she made her own house from the wood of small trees, sundried bricks and shingles, a floor from the thin tiles. She even found roots and vines in the forest that surrounded the clearing to create ropes and netting in order to fish, her hands still too small to catch a fish by hand as her father and I do.  
_

_When she was done, Satoshi smiled at her with such pride, praised her, and I have never seen my daughter happier. He asked Vanessa to tell him what the most important advantage of this structure was and my daughter, who I believed had thought it all just a bit of fun, a test of her training, looked at Satoshi without missing a beat and said “It is made of the earth and can be returned to the earth”. And that was a lesson to the both of us that day. My daughter understood the importance from the beginning, that it was something she could build on her own, and destroy if need be, without ever leaving a trace of herself behind._

_Vanessa knows how to build her own house, how to make sundried bricks, how to fit pieces of wood together from trees that she’s cut down herself, to make a home without ever needing to use a single piece of metal. She knows how to fish and clean and remove the scales from her catch with her claws, how to identify and collect the wild herbs to cook it. Satoshi has taught her to catch, kill, and skin rabbits, to clean the furs with her claws and set them out to dry. He’s taught her how to make shoes and clothing from the furs, how to take sinew from the carcass and turn it into threads and laces, how to carve and smooth and pierce the smaller bones with her claws in order to make needles. And all of this, he has taught her to do without her powers, and I know now, that he did this because there may come a day when she is hunted and forced to live as a human would, without using the powers that would draw a youkai’s attention._

_The next parts of her training are mine, to teach her how to take flax plants, cotton, and mulberry paper trees and turn those plants into cloth and thread. She has watched me create the fabrics before but I’ve never taught her how to do it for herself. She already knows how to grow the plants with the power she holds over the earth, and I’ve taught her how to use the youki I offer her to strengthen her own. Satoshi has asked that I stop lending her my power, he said that making her use only the power she holds inside of her until she is exhausted, will force her power to grow. As much as I understand his intentions is as much as I am worried by it all. But as terrifying as it is to think about, should we be separated tomorrow, my daughter knows enough to survive on her own. And that bear cub she loves so much, has taken to following her like a dog and protecting her just as fiercely. She’s even curled up with her now in her nest here high in the tree, and each day I find myself grateful that bears, by the very nature of what they are, have the ability to climb trees._

Amaya took in a deep breath, blowing the air out gently over the page to dry the ink as she set the pen and what remained of the ink aside. She continued to blow air onto the page until every last letter was dry, turning the page only when she was certain the ink wouldn’t smear or run. Reaching into the small rabbit hide bag Vanessa had made for her a few weeks ago, Amaya withdrew the charcoal pencil Satoshi had made for her, the burnt wood wrapped in strips of dried deer hide. Her lips turned up to one side in a gentle bittersweet smile as she watched Vanessa as she slept in her nest, the bear cub curled in front of her and wrapped in her arms. She was growing so fast, and these few quiet moments, while she was still small, when the world seemed at peace, she wanted a record of it for herself. A moment later, Amaya turned her attention down to the book in her lap, bringing the pencil to the page as she began to sketch.

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

**  
**

**_3 June, 2056_ **

**_Bangor, Maine_ **

 

Ammeline shook her head as she poured the last of the coffee into her mug and narrowed her eyes when it only filled the cup a third of the way. Tossing back the coffee with a grimace, she rinsed out her mug before rinsing the carafe and refilling the coffee maker and closing the lid.

_‘Don’t you dare press that button until you replace the grounds,’_ her youkai-voice warned her and Ammeline blinked.

_‘Ugh, that would have been nasty,’_ she replied as she took out the mesh filter from the basket, dumping the used grounds in the trash before rinsing out the filter and tossing it back in the basket. _‘Where the hell is my coffee?’_

_‘Other cabinet, Amme,’_ her youkai said with a sigh.

_‘Ugh. No, my good coffee. That is my backup for when I run out.’_

_‘You ran out with the last pot. You can either make the Folgers, or you can go to the store, but either way, you’re not getting the_ good _coffee for at least a few days. Your subscription isn’t due to arrive until Friday and ordering more now won’t get you any till Monday.’_

_‘I really don’t like you sometimes.’_

Her youkai scoffed. _‘Why? Because I told you you were out of the good coffee?’_

_‘No,”_ Ammeline pouted only to roll her eyes and tilt her head. _‘Yes. You know, if you really were a magical creature you would make my coffee appear for me.’_

_‘One –_ you’re _the magical creature, if you really want to call yourself that. And two – I’m your youkai, not Mary freakin Poppins.’_

_‘Pfft. If you can’t make coffee appear out of thin air, then what good are you?’_ Ammeline tossed back as she scooped the Folgers grounds into the basket before closing the lid and turning the coffee pot on.

_‘I’m good for reminding you that your mate is still sleeping in your bed, completely naked, and his hair – that you love – is completely loose all around him while you,’_ her youkai said with a sigh, _‘are fully dressed in the kitchen looking at a tablet.’_

Ammeline sighed as she returned to the table, choosing to ignore her youkai-voice as she picked up said tablet once more and activated the screen. It wasn’t like she was avoiding her mate, she just hadn’t actually made it to bed last night. Not that anything would have happened anyway, she thought with a roll of her eyes. She loved Gwen and Dobby dearly, but between their jobs and the children, she and her mate hadn’t had a normal sex life in months.

_‘You and I both know that J.J. isn’t the one who has the problem,’_ her youkai reminded her and she growled low in response.

_‘I don’t have a problem, I just – ‘_

_‘Haven’t learned how to be quiet?’_

_‘Shut. Up.’_

Pressing her lips together in a thin line as she refreshed the page for what had to be the hundredth time, Ammeline rubbed the fingers of her left hand over her lips as she shook her head slowly, caught somewhere between the desire to scream, and the will to destroy. Yesterday was the last day any of the paperwork could be turned in to affect the year to come, and there was nothing. Not even an emailed scan of it on the servers. There was an application for summer school on file for Gwen, but as there was no parent or guardian signature and no academic need for the lessons, the application had been denied.

She knew Gwen, knew how excited the girl had been to get the news that she could skip the grades. There was no way in Hell that the girl would give up this kind of opportunity willingly. Whatever it was that was holding her back, that had kept her from turning in the paperwork, it wasn’t her choice. But she wouldn’t talk about it, either, and perhaps, Ammeline thought as she glared at the tablet in her hand, that was what was frustrating her the most about it all.

“Amme?”

Ammeline looked up from the device in her hand, startled to see her mate standing in the open doorway of the kitchen, in nothing but a pair of dark blue flannel sleep pants, his long dark hair loose around him, covering his bare chest. He stood silent as he studied her, a frown marring his brow as he rubbed the knuckles of his right hand over his sternum.

“Hey,” she greeted him softly. “You put pants on,” she teased him, the corners of her lips turning up in a small smile when he grunted.

“Last time I forgot to, both the cubs woke up and I had to use a dishtowel to cover myself,” he reminded her. “I miss walking around naked in my own home,” he told her with a pout.

Ammeline offered him a smile as she nodded in remembrance. She knew at once that the expression hadn’t reached her eyes by the way the furrow between his brows deepened, his youki brushing against hers as he padded barefoot into the kitchen. J.J. didn’t speak as he moved to retrieve a mug from the cabinet, filling it – and her mug sitting next to the coffee maker – with coffee from the fresh pot that had just finished brewing, and stepped back to the table, setting her mug in front of her before pulling out the chair across from her as he sat down.

“It’s almost five AM,” he told her as he lifted his mug, sipped at the dark liquid, and set his coffee down as he met her gaze. “This is not the good coffee,” he commented with a scrunch of his nose. “You only make this when you run out of the good stuff. How many pots does this make?” he asked, jerking his head toward the coffee maker.

“Three,” she replied with a sigh.

He nodded slowly. “Your demons or someone else’s?” he asked sagely as he lifted his cup to take another drink.

“Gwen’s,” she answered softly, watching the deep furrow that formed between his brows, his eyes narrowing as he tilted his head slightly in question. “She had until yesterday to turn in the signed form from her mother giving permission for her to skip grades. She could have gone straight to ninth grade with parental approval.”

“Without that form?” he asked as she lifted her mug, drinking down half of the coffee inside in one go.

Ammeline shook her head as she sighed, her hair falling around her shoulders as she glanced at the tablet, lifting her mug with one hand to drink the rest of the coffee inside. A moment later, she set the tablet down, sitting her empty cup down with a sigh and pushed her mug away. “She can jump two, before she would need to have parental approval but she would still have to turn in the form – signature or not. As it stands, she’ll be starting fourth grade in the fall, far behind where she should be.”

“Has she talked with you about this?” he asked with a shake of his head.

Ammeline shook her head as she stood from the table, moving to refill her coffee cup, only to sigh and set the mug aside on the counter as she turned to lean back against it, her arms crossed over her chest. “That’s just it, J.J.,” she told him as she shook her head. “She _won’t_ talk to me about this. She smiles and shakes her head when I ask but she still changes the subject or just stays quiet. And I know I’m not the only one who’s smelled her tears at night.”

J.J. closed his eyes, his brows rising high before falling as he shook his head. “No, you’re not,” he confirmed with a sigh. “I’ve sat up with her at night when she can’t sleep, reading to her or telling her stories about her father. I thought she was having nightmares, at first.”

“Not so much,” Ammeline said as she bowed her head. She looked up at him, blinking as she felt the sting of tears. “I tried talking with her that first night, but she just . . . she pushed it all back, dried her eyes, like she was ashamed to be found crying. But she won’t tell me what’s wrong, and now this?” she said incredulously as she waved her arm toward the tablet sitting on the table. “I know Patty has something to do with this. No way she doesn’t.”

“What do you want to do?” J.J. asked as he stood, stepped close to take her in his arms.

“I want to claw that woman’s eyes out,” she said through clenched teeth as J.J. petted her hair.

“Well, you can’t do that,” he mused with a touch of a humor. “Or you’ll get a meeting with Paul Bunyan and it won’t be friendly.”

“I can’t believe you called him that!” Ammeline exclaimed as she slapped his arm, pulling back just enough to stare at him, laughing despite her dark mood.

“Made you smile, didn’t it?” he asked with a crooked grin.

“You’re so bad. That was always my tagline – calling him Paul Bunyan. Now, you really will end up calling him that one of these days,” she teased him, a delicate blush rising to color her cheeks when he kissed her chastely. Her eyes drifted to the side when he pulled back, her smile slipping away when she caught sight of Gwen sneaking toward the front door. “Don’t make it obvious,” she spoke softly when J.J. noticed her distraction and began to turn around.

“She’s leaving?” he whispered back as he looked back over his shoulder only to turn back and look at the coffee maker behind her. “It’s not yet six AM. Where is she going?”

Ammeline shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m going to give her a few minutes and then track her scent. Whatever is going on with her, I think this is part of it. It’s the first day of summer, she should be sleeping in and instead she’s going out the door dressed as she would be for school well before most adults are even awake.”

“What makes you so certain?” J.J. asked, his eyes narrowed.

Ammeline met his gaze as she arched her brow in a pointed stare. “Who is the only person in Gwen’s life who would be so unreasonable as to demand a meeting this early?” she asked.

J.J. clenched his jaw, shook his head as he released a frustrated sigh. “Her mother.”

 

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

 

**_Bangor Public Library_ **

 

_Gwen bit her lip as she looked up from the tablet in her hands, watching as Ammeline leaned against the doorframe of her room. The woman’s blonde brow was furrowed, her eyes narrowed in concern. Gwen twisted her lips to one side as she turned her head, following the line of the woman’s gaze to her where her brother lay sleeping against her side, his tiny hand fisted around the belt loop of her denim shorts. It wasn’t unusual at all for her brother to be where he was, the girl thought, her gaze falling to the blankets before lifting back up to meet Ammeline’s pale sky-blue eyes._

_“I want to ask you something,” Ammeline requested quietly as she stepped inside the room and moved to sit on the end of Gwen’s bed._

_“Okay,” she agreed with a slow nod, her brows furrowed in a thoughtful scowl as she moved to sit with her legs crossed, allowing the woman to sit closer._

_“The thing you’re not telling us, not telling me,” Ammeline began and Gwen stiffened as she narrowed her eyes. “It’s not nightmares, is it?” she asked._

_Gwen slouched forward slightly, the tension leaving her shoulders as she shook her head slowly, her gaze falling to the tablet resting on the bed in front of her knees. Her eyes flicked up to meet the woman’s gaze when Ammeline reached out to gently tip her head up with a finger curled beneath her chin. Where she had expected a silent demand, she found only compassion, the woman in front of her reaching up to tuck her dark hair behind her ear. Ammeline let her hand fall away from Gwen’s face slowly as she nodded her understanding to the girl._

_“Would you tell me what it is?” Ammeline asked._

_Gwen opened her mouth as she took in breath only to still as her brows furrowed and closed her eyes as she shook her head slowly._

_“Gwen,” she called to her gently and the girl pressed her lips together in an effort to control her emotions, the stinging behind her eyes making her wince. “Whatever this is, whatever is hurting you, J.J. and I are here. Whenever you want to talk or if you need our help, we are here.”_

_She wanted to be strong, to act like everything was under control and nothing was wrong, but in that moment, she couldn’t. Gwen surged forward to wrap her arms around Ammeline’s neck, her movement dislodging her brother’s hold on her beltloop, the child whining as he remained asleep. She whimpered, choking on a sob as the woman pulled her closer to sit in her lap, holding her tightly as she stroked her hand down over her hair._

_“It’ll be okay, Gwen,” Ammeline promised her, whispering in her ear as she held her, rocked her. “Whatever this is, whatever is happening, J.J. and I will find a way to make it right. You’re not in this alone. You’re not alone,” she repeated her promise, her chin resting on top of Gwen’s head as she rocked her._

Gwen had wanted to believe her – _did_ believe her – but at the same time, she also knew that there was nothing Ammeline could do about this. She couldn’t sign the papers and have her enrollment in the ninth grade, or even in the seventh grade, be accepted. As much as Ammeline was a mother to her, she wasn’t legally able to sign the papers for her, something her own mother had never let her forget in _any_ of the text messages or emails she’d sent. And as much as she knew her mother had sent the messages to remind her of the offer she’d made, was as much as Gwen knew her mother was doing it to taunt her with it as well. _Bow to me or lose what you want_ , that had always been the price her mother demanded and this was no different.

She shook her head as she tightened her hand around the padded strap of her backpack, adjusting it higher on her shoulder as she moved to step out into the crosswalk only to stop and step back, a frown marring her brow as she turned her head to the side. She was almost certain she heard someone whisper her name, but when she turned around to look, there was no one anywhere near her.

Gwen jumped a second later at the sound of the blaring horn, whipping around to face the street as she stumbled back, staring wide-eyed at the delivery truck that rushed through the intersection. Had she stepped out a few seconds ago when she’d planned to, she’d have been killed. The fear that rushed through her was soothed away a moment later as a warm feeling wrapped around her, reminding her of one of Ammeline’s hugs.

“I guess Daddy was right,” she whispered as she looked back toward the trees behind her before crossing the street. “I really do have a guardian angel.”

Gwen released a deep sigh as she looked back over her shoulder once more before stepping up to the side door of the library – the same entrance the employees used – and knocked on the door. It was at least another hour before the library officially opened but Jin Soon – better known as Mama Pungsan – had never minded her coming early or staying late. Her father had been the first one to bring her to the library, she recalled as she waited for the door to be unlocked, her gaze falling to the side as she lost focus on the world around her.

_“This is a place where magic happens,” her father told her as he held her high against his shoulder, her hand clutching his shirt as she looked around. “Within these walls, you can be faery living in a faraway land, a princess from long ago.”_

_“An astwonaut?” Gwen asked, her eyes wide as she looked back at her father before turning back to look at all the books._

_“Even a world traveler,” a woman said as she walked up to them. “You must be Lady Gwenhwyfar,” she said with a smile. “Your father has been telling me about you for weeks. He was so proud to tell me you learned to read very quickly.”_

_“I like stowies,” Gwen said with a shrug and tilted her head. “Your voice is different.”_

_“I am from South Korea,” she told Gwen. “I am Jin Soon, but you, can call me Mama Pungsan. All the little ones do,” she added as she glanced up at her father._

_“How do you say ‘Hello’?” Gwen asked as she blinked at the woman._

_“Just like you do,” Jin Soon said with a curious frown._

_Gwen pouted as she frowned. “But Mrs. Danielsen is from Noway and she says hello god dag,” she said, saying the Norwegian greeting her neighbor had taught her._

_Jin Soon clicked her tongue as she smiled. “Ah, I see,” she said with a nod. “Joeun achimieyo,” she offered the greeting, repeating the words slower a second time when Gwen frowned in confusion._

_She frowned as she stumbled over the pronunciation, repeating the words again at the same time as Jin Soon until she got it correct. Gwen giggled as she clapped her hands, smiling brightly when the woman praised her for doing a good job._

_“I bet if you asked nicely,” her father began as Gwen looked back at him, “Mama Pungsan would teach you her language just like Mrs. Danielsen is teaching you hers,” he said and Gwen turned back to stare at Jin Soon with wide eyes._

_“Would you please! Pwetty please!” she begged as she clapped her hands._

_“Ye,” Jin Soon replied with a nod. “That means yes,” she offered with a chuckle._

_“I read somewhere once that it’s easier for children to learn multiple languages, especially when they’re younger,” her father said. “Whatever you teach her, she’ll soak it up like a sponge.”_

Gwen blinked, the memory fading away as she heard the snap of the lock releasing and looked up to watch as the door opened. “Good morning, Mama Pungsan,” she greeted Jin Soon in Korean, frowning at the hardened expression on the older woman’s face.

“Good morning, child,” Jin Soon returned in her native tongue as she stepped back to allow Gwen entrance. “Your mother called to confirm that I would be here to let her in. I do not like that woman.”

“I don’t, either,” Gwen returned softly, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dimmer light of the hall as the door closed behind her. “Sometimes, I wish she’d just go away and not come back.”

The librarian narrowed her eyes but didn’t offer up a response either way. “When I met you so many years ago,” she began and Gwen frowned at her tone. “You were barely three years old. You asked me to teach you Korean, you were already learning Norwegian from your neighbor, and from what I understand of the things your father told me, he was trying to teach you the language of his ancestors.” Gwen nodded as she followed Jin Soon into the main floor of the library. “You are nine now, and I remember you telling me that by the time you were ten, you would speak five languages.”

Gwen laughed as she shook her head. “I had so many dreams back then,” she said with a sigh.

“Back then?” Jin Soon repeated, her brow arched in a pointed stare. “That was six years ago.”

Gwen lifted her shoulders in a slow shrug. “It feels like another life sometimes.”

“How many languages do you know now?” Jin Soon asked her as she crossed her arms over her chest, staring at Gwen in a silent challenge.

“Well, that depends,” she offered with a shrug. “I’m fluent in Norwegian and Korean but that’s because I have you and Mrs. Danielsen to talk to every day and practice. Dad never really did teach me Cherokee. He tried, I just . . . he wasn’t fluent in it. He knew enough to tell the old stories and sing some of the old songs but not enough to have a conversation. Oh! The lady at the market, Greta, she’s been teaching me German and in exchange, I’ve been helping her after school.”

“I thought I noticed a change in you,” she offered with a nod of approval. “You are not caring for your brother alone anymore, are you?” Gwen shook her head as she bit her lip, smiling as adjusted her bag on her shoulder. “The blonde woman I’ve seen pick you up and your father’s teammate. The giant?” she asked with wide eyes.

“J.J.’s not a – “ Gwen paused as she laughed and nodded. “Okay, yeah, he’s a giant,” she agreed. “Mama Pungsan,” she said a moment later, her brow furrowing as she looked at her hands before turning her eyes up to meet the woman’s gaze. “Have you ever been in a situation where no matter what you did, what choice you made, someone was going to get hurt?” She watched as the woman nodded silently. “What did you do?”

“I made the choice I could live with,” she offered solemnly. “That’s all you can do.”

Gwen nodded slowly, knowing that ultimately the woman was right. This choice, her decision to not skip the grades, to be held back, no matter how bored she was – that she could live with. Moving out of J.J. and Ammeline’s home, taking her brother away from them – taking _herself_ away from them – that she knew would kill her inside. Living with Ammeline and J.J., in a way, was like having her father back and maybe that was selfish, but she couldn’t give that up.

Taking in a deep breath as she pushed away from the counter she had been leaning against, Gwen moved toward the stacks of books, never hearing the knock at the same side door she had entered through. Had she turned back, she would have seen Jin Soon letting Ammeline and J.J. into the library, the woman talking to them softly as she greeted them. Gwen kept her eyes focused on the floor as she walked, clutching onto the strap of her backpack as if it would somehow save her, never seeing or noticing the adults following quietly behind her, guarding her as they slipped into the shadows.

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

 

Ammeline leaned back against the man standing behind her, lifting one hand from where her arms rested on top of his to catch a thick lock of his dark hair, pulling the length of it over her shoulder. She felt the gentle pressure as he dropped a kiss to the top of her head, his arms tightening around her briefly as she toyed with his hair. Part of her wanted so much to leave the shadows they stood in, hidden by the stacks of thick reference tomes, and go to Gwen’s side but she also knew that if she did that, she and J.J. would never get the answers they needed.

_‘You’re keeping your promise to her,’_ her youkai-voice reminded her. _‘Whether she appreciates it or not right now, you and J.J. are making sure that she isn’t facing whatever this is alone.’_

_‘Whatever this is,’_ she replied as she gently pulled the thick length of her mate’s hair through her hands, _‘it feels . . . ‘_

_‘Painful,’_ her youkai supplied with a sigh.

_‘ . . . Yeah.’_

“She’ll be all right,” J.J. whispered to her as he rubbed his thumb over her flat stomach. “I know you’re worried, so am I, but she’s tough. She had to be to survive her mother.”

“I just hate waiting here in the shadows,” she replied, her voice only loud enough for him to hear.

He snorted in amusement. “It was your idea,” he reminded her. “Besides, you were right. Whatever this is, that cub is either ashamed of it or afraid of it and won’t tell us which it is or why.”

Ammeline took in a breath to respond only to growl low, the sound dangerous and protective, when she caught Patricia’s scent in the air. She could feel the rumble against her back as J.J. growled as well, his arms tightening around her – whether to keep her from attacking Patricia or to remind himself not to advance on the woman – she wasn’t sure.

“Does she look younger to you?” Ammeline whispered, narrowing her eyes when the woman moved into their field of vision.

“Yeah,” J.J. whispered back, his tone suspicious. “Did she ever even mourn Ethan at all?”

Patricia’s clothes were different than what she was used to seeing the woman wear. Finer materials, higher heels, slimmer cuts and more flattering colors. Her hair was swept up into a neatly styled French twist, the comb securing it made from mother of pearl and inlaid with dark green gems – emeralds or jade, she wasn’t sure. Her makeup was impeccable, the slight beginnings of frown lines Ammeline had seen in Patricia’s face before were all but gone now. She shook her head as she glanced back at J.J. before returning her attention to the girl sitting at the table.

“I only have a few minutes,” Patricia Dobson said a few seconds later as she stepped up to the table, setting her designer bag down on the heavy wood table.

Gwen straightened in her chair, her eyes focused on the woman in front of her. “No,” she said calmly, her answer firm.

“No?” Patricia repeated as she crossed her arms.

“No,” Gwen said again as she bowed her head, looking down at the table before lifting her gaze to meet her mother’s “I’m not moving out.”

“Moving out?” J.J. whispered, a growl in his voice. “Why in the hell would she move out?”

“Need I remind you of the choice here, Gwen?” Patricia said, her tone mocking as though she believed she would triumph in the end. “You have an opportunity to begin ninth grade in the fall, but you need _my_ approval to do so. You take your brother and move out of that house and back into your proper home and _cut all ties_ with that woman and her idiot husband, or you squander your opportunity, stay where you are, and remain,” she flicked her wrist toward the girl, “ _this_.”

Ammeline snarled, the sound cutting off almost as soon as it broke free, J.J.’s arms tightening around her waist to hold her in place. “I’d really rather you not get an unfriendly meeting with the Zelig or his heir,” J.J. whispered fiercely in her ear.

“She’s _threatening_ my pup!” Ammeline growled at him in a fierce whisper as she tried to break of his hold, only to stop fighting him when he jostled her.

“She’s my cub, too,” J.J. returned with a growl. “But if we do anything now, we could lose her for good,” he reminded her.

Ammeline gasped as she froze in place, her rage quieting as she shook her head. “I won’t lose her,” she declared as she shook her head. “I won’t let anything happen to her.”

“I don’t care what it costs me,” Gwen snapped, and Ammeline blinked as she turned her attention back to the girl. “I’m not moving out. I won’t . . .” Her voice trailed off as she gasped and shook her head. “I won’t give up the home I have with them and I won’t take it away from Dobby, either. Why does it even matter to you?” she demanded.

Ammeline whined at the scent of salt in the air, the pain she could feel in Gwen’s aura. J.J. rubbed her arm as he held her, pulling her back against his chest in a gentler hold as he rested his chin on her head. She felt his youki wrap around her as she reached out to Gwen with hers, her mate following suit, as they offered Gwen support in any way they could.

“ _You_ , Gwenhwyfar Marian Dobson, are nothing more than a reflection of me and I _will not_ be embarrassed by you. If you want your own spotlight,” she said as she lifted her bag from the table, hooking the handle over her arm and tucking it into the bend of her elbow, “then you _will_ do as I say and move out. I will not have it known that my . . . _children_ . . . were being cared for your father’s whore and her idiot husband.”

“ _What?_ ” Gwen and Ammeline exclaimed at the same time, the louder angry sound of the child’s voice covering up Ammeline’s low snarl.

“Daddy _wasn’t_ the one who was sleeping around. That was _you!_ ” Gwen snapped as she stood from the table, the chair pushed out behind her. “ _You_ are the one who was . . . _God!_ It’s bad enough that I have to deal with the kids at school taunting me because they saw _you_ in bed with their _fathers_ but you make it worse by lying about Daddy _all_ the time! Daddy died a hero! He died saving people! And you – “ Gwen shook her head as she stared at the woman in anger and disbelief “ – I _hate_ you so much. Just go away!” she demanded. “Go!” she yelled, using her anger a cover until her mother turned and walked away.

Ammeline moved the very second J.J. dropped his arms from around her, catching Gwen as she fell, the girl’s eyes squeezed tightly closed as she sobbed. Gwen turned, clinging to her as she buried her face in Ammeline’s shoulder, her body trembling as she cried. J.J. stepped up behind Ammeline, lifting her and the child into his arms as he moved to sit on the forgotten chair, holding them both in his lap as he wrapped his arms around his mate and the girl they both considered to be their child.

J.J. stroked his hand down over Gwen’s hair as he watched her cry, his temper getting the better of him as he closed his eyes. The only thing that was keeping him sane right now were the woman and child wrapped in his arms. He wanted to leave, to go after Patricia and end the threat she made to his family once and for all but he knew he couldn’t. Blinking down at Gwen when he felt the girl trace her fingertips over the crests on the back of his hand, he watched her look up to meet his gaze, her storm blue eyes begging him not to hate her.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” he asked her quietly.

Gwen shrugged miserably. “What was I supposed to say? I didn’t want to disappoint either of you but I can’t – I don’t want to go away.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Ammeline promised her fiercely, as she pulled the girl close. “We’ll find a way around this. We’ll find a way to give you the future you deserve.”

“Gwen,” J.J. called to her, waiting for her to meet his gaze before he continued. “There is no way you could have disappointed us in this. She put you in an impossible situation, and she knew _exactly_ what she was doing. If I could, I would take you and your brother away from her this second and legally adopt you as ours. You and your brother are our cubs,” he told her, his gaze fierce. “No matter what happens, you will _always_ have us.”

“You want to get out of here?” Ammeline asked. Gwen nodded silently as she leaned her head against the woman’s shoulder. “Are you hungry?” she asked as she dropped a kiss to the girl’s hair.

Gwen shook her head as she curled closer to Ammeline, a tired little whine sounding from the child as she wrapped her arms over her stomach.

“How does the idea of camping sound to you?” J.J. asked, waiting as Gwen turned her head to look up at him. “We could go out to that spot in the mountains your dad always took you to.”

“Yeah?” Gwen asked as she sniffled.

“Yeah,” J.J. agreed as he smoothed the backs of his fingers against her cheeks, drying her tears.

“Can – Can Shorty come?” she asked nervously.

“The whole team can come, if you want,” he told her, watching her chin tremble as she nodded. “Okay. Let me make a few calls,” he told her, standing with Ammeline in his arms, and setting her down in the chair he’d just vacated.

“J.J.,” Gwen called to him and he arched a curious brow. “I . . . “ She fell silent as she looked down as her brow furrowed, blinking as she looked back up at him. “I miss Daddy . . . a lot but you . . . you make it not hurt so much.”

J.J. knelt next to the chair, opening his arms to her, and catching Gwen when she leaned into him. He stood with her in his arms, her legs wrapped around his waist, her arms wrapped around his neck. Arching a brow when Ammeline stood from the chair, he watched her shake her head, her eyes glistening.

“Go on, Papa Bear,” she teased him, nodding toward the front of the library. “I’ve got her things.”

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

  


**_Quebec City, Canada_ **

Count your steps to count the seconds. It was something her father had always told her, repeating it at times like a mantra but always making it fun. She couldn’t remember how old she was when he’d first said it to her, but neither could she remember a time when he hadn’t said it to her. Her steps were smaller than his, for every step he took, she had to take two. Each single step she made was one foot, her father had told her that when she was four and had always made it a point for her to be able to tell him how far away something was that she’d found – a river, a flower, a new tree – anything she found, he had taught her to measure how far away from their house it was.

She hadn’t understood it back then, but now, since they’d been moving from place to place, it all made sense. Measuring how far she was from a central point, knowing which direction she’d left in, meant that she always knew how to get back to wherever they were. This place, the clearing she was standing in now, was one-hundred-twenty steps west of the cabin and forty-five steps south. It was safer this way, that was what her father had told her. Keeping the garden away from the cabin, far away from the place someone else had built, it would make certain that if anyone found the cabin, they wouldn’t know that anyone was living there.

Vanessa bit her lip as she tilted her head to one side, studying the ground in front of her. Her father had left the garden up to her, telling her that she would need to turn the soil before she decided what to grow there. The ground had been left untended for too long, and while the grass and wildflowers grew thick, it would need to be worked before it would produce the food they needed. She wanted berries and fruit and carrots. Her mother had asked for squash and pumpkins, cucumbers and radishes. Her father had reminded her that they would need wheat to make flour, corn, apples and barley.

_‘It’s kind of a lot to ask of you, isn’t it?’_ her youkai-voice asked.

Vanessa frowned. _‘I don’t think so. Papa always makes the gardens and sometimes I help but this time it’s my garden.’_

_‘It feels like a test,’_ her youkai insisted. _‘Just like having you build that house felt like a test.’_

_‘You don’t get it yet, do you?’_ Vanessa asked quietly as she moved to sit in the center of a patch of wild tulips and daffodils.

_‘Get what?’_ her youkai asked.

_‘Mama and Papa . . . They’ve been talking a lot more in Japanese lately, and all the new things Papa’s been teaching me, the things Mama told me she was going to start teaching me . . . they don’t think we’re going to be able to stay together.’_ Vanessa closed her eyes as she buried her fingertips into the ground up to her third knuckle, wiggling her claws in the earth below to sink her fingers deeper. _‘They think I’m going to be alone. Maybe I will be.’_

She was scared, Vanessa thought as she did as her father had always taught her, pouring her emotions and power into the earth and listening to the earth as it rumbled around her. She didn’t open her eyes as the soil began to lift from below, the grass and flowers around her turning, folding into the earth below and the dirt shifted, the plants breaking apart. She couldn’t break rocks as her father could yet, it took too much energy, too much effort, but it took little focus at all to do this, to return the plants to the earth and turn the mix of dirt and broken plants in preparation for growing something new.

Her brows furrowed, drawing together in a frown of concentration as she focused out her power as far as she could, reaching out for the ancient pines that stood in the distance only to pull back just enough that she could no longer feel their roots, or the soil they inhabited. It was that space, just on the edge of the forest line, that she pooled her youki, focusing her mind on the apple tree her father had asked for. She could feel the burn inside her mind, the headache building, as she concentrated on growing the tree.

Her mother hadn’t come with them. She wasn’t there to reach out to her this time, wasn’t there to grant her the ability to borrow her power, and Vanessa knew that this was meant to be something she did on her own. She had been taught – and proved able – to build a house on her own, creating the elastic mortar to turn into sundried bricks, building every part of it from the earth, and it hadn’t escaped her notice that all of it had been done without the use of her powers in any way. This time? This test? She was meant to show how strong she was, how able she was to create her own garden – her own food.

“That’s enough for now,” Satoshi said gently. Vanessa opened her eyes, blinked as she watched him kneel down in front of her. “That tree is little more than a sapling now, but it is sturdy and will grow strong. When you finish the rest of the garden, you can add to the tree itself, but for now, you need to rest.”

Vanessa nodded as she pulled her youki in, letting her fingers remain in the earth as she moved her legs, uncrossing them to stretch them out in front of her, and laid back on the toiled soil behind her. She could feel the earth shift beneath her, the soil spreading slowly apart as her body sank lower until her head was pillowed and elevated slightly by the ground behind her, the soil around her moving to cover her like a blanket.

“My little earth worm,” her father teased. “Your mother’s gone down to the stream to catch our dinner. Teddy is right beside you,” he informed her, nodding to his right, and Vanessa turned her head, smiling tiredly at the sight of the bear cub stretched out on her belly. “I’m going to go back to the cabin, work on starting a fire for dinner. Tug at me if you need me.”

Vanessa nodded slightly as she closed her eyes, twining her youki with her father’s. It wasn’t difficult to stay with him, following him with her youki as he walked away from her. She stretched her youki as far as she could in search of her mother’s but she was too far away. Echoes of her mother’s youki came to her through her connection to her father, the feel of it comforting even as she wished for more. Her strength would grow with time and practice, her mother had always promised her that, Vanessa thought as she moved slightly, wiggling deeper into the earth surrounding her. She could feel the earth reaching up around her, vines wrapping around her wrists and over her stomach as the energy she had lost felt to be returning to her slowly, her eyes drooping until they finally closed of their own accord.

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

**_Bangor, Maine_ **

J.J. shook his head as he reached for the toddler that came bounding toward him, swinging Dobby up with his hands wrapped around the boy’s chest only to toss him into the air, catching him and tossing him up again and again as he listened to him squeal and shriek with laughter. He laughed as he watched the child kick his legs, catching him one final time before holding him to his side with one arm curled beneath his bottom. Looking up toward the kitchen, he met Ammeline’s gaze, nodding to her once as he moved to sit on the couch with Dobby. Ammeline had already talked to Gwen, but Dobby had been left up to him, a responsibility he didn’t mind at all.

“Dobby,” he called the cub’s attention and watched as the boy turned to him with a wide smile, his blue eyes sparkling. “You know that Shorty and the rest of the team are coming over soon, and then we’re all going camping together, right?” he asked.

Dobby kicked his little legs, bouncing in his seat on J.J.’s hip as he clapped his hands. “Shawty!” he cheered. “We go campin’!”

“Yes,” he agreed, smiling when the child reached up to trace the line of his crest on his cheekbone with his chubby finger. Both he and his sister had been able to see them clearer since the night he and Ammeline had revealed to the children what they were, told them what it all meant. “That,” he said as he caught Dobby’s hand, “is what we need to talk about. The other guys don’t know about my stripes, or what Amme and I are, and you can’t tell them.”

“Is it bad?” Dobby asked, his brow furrowed as his lips turned out in a pout.

“It’s not bad,” J.J. said with a tilt of his head, “they just can’t know.”

“Like cat man?” he asked.

J.J. couldn’t help the bark of laughter that came from him at the mention of Corey. “And how do you know about Corey?”

“He talked to the kitty! He gots the kitty outta the tree by talking to him!” Dobby proclaimed and J.J. shook his head.

“And when was this?” he asked with an arch of his brow.

“Cuppa day weeks ago,” Dobby said and J.J. frowned as he chuckled.

“What?” he asked as he blinked.

“Cuppa day weeks ago!” Dobby insisted with wide eyes.

“He means a little over two weeks ago,” Gwen said as she stepped in from the kitchen. “I was there with him. Corey said he figured we knew about you two, and he didn’t have a problem with us knowing about him, so he . . . talked to the cat.” She shrugged when J.J. met her gaze. “I thought he told you,” she said in reference to the cat youkai. “He told us that day,” she said as she frowned at the floor, crossing her arms over her chest, “that if anything ever happened to the two of you, he’d look after us. He acted like it was no big thing,” she said raising her eyes to meet J.J.’s gaze, “but it feels like it was a big thing.”

“It is,” J.J. confirmed after a moment of silence. “You both are humans who have lived with, and know about, youkai. If something happened to us, it would be . . . dangerous . . . for you to go back to living with any human aside from your mother.”

“Why?” Gwen asked with a frown.

“Because you have knowledge of our existence, and to some extent, can even see through our concealments,” he told her, watching as her frown deepened.

“Not really,” Gwen said, her eyes narrowed as her lips pinched into a thin line. “I couldn’t see through his concealment at all until . . . “

“Until what?” J.J. asked when she fell silent.

“Until I felt safe with him,” she said slowly. “I don’t remember seeing your stripes until I felt safe with you, either,” she added with a thoughtful frown.

“Crests,” J.J. corrected with a smile. “Your father was the same way. There were times he’d just stare at me or do a double-take.”

“Did you ever tell him?” she asked.

J.J. shook his head. “No. It isn’t something we normally tell anyone, unless our mate is human, and most times we only tell them and not their family. Youkai . . . what Amme and I are . . . if others – humans – knew they’d hurt us. They’ve done it before to others of our kind. It’s why it’s so important that it stay a secret.”

Gwen nodded slowly before turning her attention on her brother. “Dobby, if anyone asks you what Ammeline and J.J. are, what do you say?”

“Family!” the boy cheered.

“And what about their stripes?” she asked, arching a brow as she held her brother’s gaze.

Dobby offered his sister a mulish pout as he narrowed his eyes. “No!” he said and J.J. blinked.

“Why no?” Gwen persisted.

“Dere stwipes are just for us!” he insisted.

“And why is that?” she asked him as she stepped closer to sit on the coffee table facing her brother.

“Because . . . dere our family.”

“And what happens if you tell someone about their stripes?” she asked him and J.J. frowned as he studied the interaction.

“Den dey wouldn’t be our family no more,” he said, his voice lowered, his eyes sad as he looked up at the bear youkai.

“And why wouldn’t they be?” she asked him.

“Because . . . someone would take us away. They don’t see what we see. They don’t know that stripes are good,” he told her.

“Good boy,” she praised quietly and reached out to ruffle his hair.

“Hey no, my hair!” the toddler exclaimed as he batted her hand away.

“You already taught him to keep us a secret,” J.J. said as he looked up to meet her gaze with wide eyes. “When?”

“A week or so before you and Amme told us what you were and removed your concealments for us. It was becoming easier for both of us to see through them and I was afraid that if Dobby said anything that someone would take us away or . . . “

“Or we would ask you to leave,” Ammeline finished from the open doorway of the kitchen when Gwen trailed off, the girl remaining silent.

“Yeah,” Gwen admitted softly as she turned back to look at the woman.

“We’ll never ask you to leave,” J.J. assured her when she turned back to face him, leaning close to kiss her brow. “You’re stuck with us,” he told her, smiling when she laughed. “Go make sure you’ve got everything together for the camping trip. I’ll call Shorty and let him know we’re all ready to go,” he instructed, standing up from the couch and handing Dobby to Ammeline when she reached out for the boy. “Cat man,” he chuckled with a roll of his eyes.

 


	6. Chapter 5 "The Road Less Traveled"

AN: **_The Child of Earth and Sea_** is part of the **Purity** series and set in the current time line of Charity and Ben’s story. Rumiko Takahashi owns Inuyasha and all recognizable characters from the anime, all characters from the Purity universe belong to Sueric, I have simply been granted the honor of taking them out to play for a little while. This series tells the story of Nessa Beaumonte, from the one-shot _Heart of a Warrior,_ and has been written with the approval of, and in collaboration with the original author of the Purity Universe, Sueric.

 

 

**The Child of Earth and Sea**

_A Purity Collaboration_

_By_ _WhisperingWolf_

 

Chapter 5

  _"The Road Less Traveled"  
_

 

 

Satoshi pressed his lips together in a thin line as he looked back at his mate and child, watching as they slept in the hammock of vines he’d created, Vanessa’s bear cub cuddled in between them. He had heard rumors of a youkai who dealt in the sale of cars and other items, things that could be purchased without the need for driver’s licenses or formal paperwork, and as much as he didn’t like the idea of risking his family just to meet with the tuco-tuco youkai, he also knew that it was necessary.

They couldn’t stay here in the wilds of Canada anymore, not with the hunting season starting up and the humans all traveling around in packs. It would have been dangerous enough had they been carrying bows and arrows, or laying down traps, but the guns? He’d lived long enough to know that guns were too easily fired accidentally or in the heat of the moment. How many times had he and Amaya nearly been killed over the centuries by someone who didn’t know what they were—didn’t understand—and sought to kill them instead of trying to capture them?

_‘Humans,’_ he thought with anger. _‘They’re all the same—kill first and ask questions later.’_

_‘And youkai are any better?’_ his youkai-voice asked evenly. _‘At least the humans will just kill you—over and done with before you even realize anything’s happened—but the youkai chasing you and Amaya, and now Nessa as well . . .’_ His youkai sighed heavily. _‘Those youkai want to capture you all, sell you each off to the highest bidder like circus animals or—or some kind baubles. Don’t—don’t leave them, not just yet. Write it down first. They’ll be time to translate it later, once you’re all safe again, but you need to write it down so that she can read it someday.’_

Satoshi shook his head as he narrowed his eyes, bending his knees slightly as his muscles contracted, and sprang to the branch where their bags were hanging. He searched for the pen and ink he’d created first, checking the amount of ink inside the small earthenware jar before replacing the cork seal and tucked the small jar in his pocket alongside the pen. He unzipped the largest pocket of the bag, crouching down—his feet on either side of the bag—as he pulled the giant book from inside, being careful not to lose his balance or cause the bag to fall from its perch.

_‘I know this seems like a waste of time to you right now,’_ his youkai-voice said as he moved to sit down with his back against the wide trunk of the cherry tree. _‘But you need to write this down for Nessa. She needs to be able to read it someday, to understand that her power isn’t bad, that it isn’t harmful or dangerous and that you’re only doing this to protect her. If you don’t write this down—if she never has the opportunity to see it from your point of view and understand why you make her do this—how will that make her see herself?’_

_‘No, I get it,’_ Satoshi replied with a sigh. _‘It just feels. . . ‘_

_‘Like you’re running out of time,’_ his youkai finished his thought. _‘I know. You can translate it later, they’ll be time enough for that. Just write it all down now so that you don’t forget.’_

Satoshi sighed as he nodded, opening the book and propping it up against his bent knees. He smiled as he looked at his wife’s sketch of their daughter sleeping in her nest with the bear cub wrapped in her arms, the creature nearly as big as Vanessa herself was. Closing his eyes as he grasped a thick section of the pages—nearly the length of his thumb—he turned to a blank page near the back and pressed his lips together in a thin line as he withdrew the pen and ink from his pocket.

He’d counted the pages in this book once before. He really wasn’t sure why he’d done so, except that he really hadn’t wanted to write his story down at the time and had been stalling for time. One thousand-five-hundred-fifty pages. And the page he’d turned to? He would guess it was somewhere in that last five-hundred-fifty—somewhere in the middle of it.

Satoshi growled at himself as he shook his head. He was doing it again—stalling and delaying what needed to be done in the hopes that he wouldn’t have to do it.

_‘Just write it down. Leave a blank page next to it so you can translate it later, but write it down. Let this section be your letters to her. Leave something behind to let her know that you were proud of her, that you never wanted her to be less than what she is.’_

Satoshi nodded at the advice of his youkai-voice, dipping the wooden pen into the ink he’d made before bringing the tip to the middle of the page.

_Vanessa, my daughter, what follows is just for you. Someday, I will make certain that the letters written here are translated to English, and someday—kami willing—I will teach you Japanese. It is your heritage, but for right now, I must keep that language as a secret. I fear, it is the only way to keep you safe, the only way to keep the darkness your mother and I face from reaching you. I want the world you see to be full of wonder and light and beauty. I don’t ever want you burdened by the worry and doubt and fear your mother and I carry._

_Never forget that we love you. Never forget that we sacrificed everything for you and we would do it all over again. You are our light in the darkness, you give us hope. Every time I look at you, I remember why I do all the things I do. You give me strength, my daughter. I will always love you and I am always—always—proud of you._

_Papa_

Satoshi closed his eyes, counting the seconds until five minutes had passed before he opened his eyes and gently ran the tip of his finger over the kanji he’d written. He nodded to himself when he found the ink dry, and turned the page, only to turn another as he reminded himself to translate the page he’d just written. He would remember, he told himself, there would be time for that later. Closing his eyes once more as he gathered his thoughts together, he opened his eyes, dipping the pen into the ink and tapping it against the edge of the earthenware jar before bringing the tip to the new page.

_It’s the middle or August, I think, or maybe September. We don’t really have a calendar out here—haven’t had one since we left the house in Montana. It was getting warmer during the day, but the nights have gotten colder again, humid. The skies rumble with the threat of storms, though we’ve yet to see much rain. Perhaps this area doesn’t get much rain, or perhaps the trees protect us from it._

_I’m rambling, I know. I didn’t come here to talk about the weather._

_I’ve always told you that I did what I did—mixed the fireplace ash with crushed black geode and left it in a pile by the wall, cut my hand and threw the blood on the wall—as a mark, a way to find our way back to that house. As you grew older, I had you do the same, and your mother has always done it, as well._

_I need to understand that it wasn’t a trail, we weren’t leaving breadcrumbs, and, when you’re older—kami-forbid—when you’re on your own, you’ll need to do the same. Mixing the ash and crushed geode makes it look like the remains of a slain youkai—enough so that you can be safe from those hunting you, at least, for a little while. And casting your blood on the wall, it adds your scent to it all. The only thing you can’t mimic is the scent of death. And believe me, I’ve searched the world over for a way to do just that, but haven’t found anything that works._

_We’re in Canada right now, somewhere on the outskirts of Ontario. We’ve been living in the wilds, in the trees. You love it so much, building your nest high up in the branches, as high as you can go. You’re strong enough now to grow the trees, to make them thicker—strong enough to support your nests, your weight and your mother’s. You’ve built our garden, but we had to leave it behind._

_You built your first house from sundried mud bricks, twigs and trees. I was so proud of you. Until that day, I didn’t realize. . . Amaya—your mother—it hadn’t really occurred to her yet, but it did then. She finally understood. Everything we’re teaching you, everything you’re learning—as your mother requested, we’re making it a game for you—but these are skills you need to learn to survive on your own._

_There will come a day when we’re not with you any longer, and you need to be able to survive on your own without anyone else. You need to learn to stand on your own, to be alone. As much as I may wish for it, I can’t risk you finding a mate. It would be too dangerous for you. In this day and age of modern medicine, of marking one’s mate through the refined method, there is also genetic testing, and if anyone were to test yours. . ._

Satoshi sighed as he shook his head, dipped the pen into the ink before tapping the edge of it on the rim of the jar, and brought it to the page once more.

_I’m getting away from myself. I didn’t come here to write that, but it came out all the same. Tonight, I’m getting you a new pair of gloves. This is something I need you to remember, something I need you to_ always _remember. I am proud of you, and I am so very honored to see how strong you are, how much power you hold and how easy it is for you to grow the earth. But as easy as it is for you to connect with the earth, to grow a tree or a plant with just a touch, it is also dangerous. Revealing that power is too effortless for you, you don’t have to think about what you’re doing, you don’t have to concentrate on it—you never had to. Even building the gardens, you only ever had to focus on what you wanted and where, but not on the actual growing of it.  
_

_You were nine months old the first time I realized just how strong you would be. I’d set you down in a sparse bit of grass, in nothing but your diaper and a bonnet your mother had made to protect your face from the sun. I turned around for only a second, to say something to your mother when I heard her gasp, saw the look in her eyes, and turned back to look at you. The ground below you and around you—nearly a four-foot circle in diameter—was covered in thick new grass, as dark as jade, as soft as rabbit’s fur._

_You were nine months old—nine! I was terrified of what it all meant, how strong you would be. What if you turned out like me? Fear and anger and pain creating earthquakes? I couldn’t bear the thought of it, but I also knew I couldn’t stop it. We were living in a city at that time—there were no youkai for nearly a hundred miles. We were safe, and Amaya, she wanted to get you a princess dress. She wanted a picture of it._

_You were a year old when she talked me into it. It was your birthday. We took you into a little shop in town, Amaya found you this beautiful satin dress—fern green—the same color as your crests. We got you elbow length white satin gloves, and white satin knee socks. You were so adorable, your hair was still a mess of curls at that time, it’s gotten a little tamer as you’ve grown older—more like the waves upon the ocean and less like the poodle you looked like back then. I’m veering off topic again, I do that sometimes._

_Your mother and I held you all day like that—dressed like a princess. We took pictures, and I asked for the original negatives from the photographer. In the back of this book, beneath the parchment lining the inside cover of the book, are the pictures and the film. I want you to have them. We discovered something by accident that day. When we came home—you, still wrapped in satin—your mother set you down in the grass and you cried. You were inconsolable, and neither one of us understood why._

_You quieted when we picked you back up, and cried when we set you down. I thought you just wanted to be held, but I watched your mother frown as she picked you up, carried you out to the concrete sidewalk and set you down. You didn’t react at all, but when she set you down in the grass again . . . The thing we discovered that day is that satin—because it’s made from unnatural materials—blocks you from connecting you to the earth. It restrains your power. We discovered that winter that faux fur and commercial leather—any commercially made clothing, actually—does the same thing. Because of the materials it’s made out of, the chemicals used in the processing, it creates a barrier that your power cannot pass through._

_I don’t know if you’ve ever understood why we do it, but when I know that we’ll have to take you near other youkai—especially into their homes or offices—I make you wear the satin gloves and socks. I know you hate it, I know it—for whatever reason—makes you tired and lethargic, but I also know this: Dressing you in the satin makes it appear to any other youkai that you have no power, that you have no ability to use your youki, and that, Vanessa, may just be the only thing that’s kept you safe. Yes, the other youkai know you’re the offspring of a shachi mother, and half-blended water-earth father, but when they see no power from you at all, it makes it look to anyone who doesn’t know you, that you were born without power of your own._

_It’s why you’ll hear other youkai call you that word—abomination. I hate that word, and it’s not true, don’t ever think it is. Not for a second._

_I’ll write to you again, but I have to stop for now. We’re going to go meet the tuco-tuco tonight—and I have to get you gloves and socks. It never mattered how dirty you got the socks, as long as you wear them. That’s all that ever mattered. It hides you, and that keeps you safe._

_I love you, my daughter, and I am forever proud of you.  
_

_Papa_

  
 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

  


Satoshi look behind him, to both sides, and in front before he crouched low in front of the door, studying the simple keylock for a moment before jamming his claw into the metal. He twisted his claw in the lock, wincing when the lock resisted and sighed in relief when he felt the lock give way. He hissed as he pulled his claw from the lock, opening the door just wide enough to slip inside the small shop before closing it again.

Stealing had never been something he liked doing, but time and experience had taught him that going into a store during business hours to make a purchase like any normal customer put his family in danger. It was too easy to be tracked on the cameras, to be seen by someone who knew someone else that was searching for them.

_‘Don’t let them get your prints,’_ his youkai-voice warned. _‘More than one way to track you.’_

Satoshi sighed as he nodded to himself, pulling a pair of black gloves off the wire rack and slipped them over his hands. It was easy enough to rip the tag off them once they were on, and he set the bit of stiff paper on the counter before moving to the children’s section. Satin was the only material that would really be effective, he thought as he searched through the clothes and undergarments. It wasn’t a natural material, and if he could find satin gloves and socks made from a polyester mix, that would be even better.

_‘She’s going to hate this,’_ his youkai-voice cautioned with a sigh.

_‘I don’t care if she hates it as long as it keeps her safe,’_ Satoshi replied as he pulled four small cardboard boxes off the rack, checking the back of them before nodding to himself. _‘That covers the knee socks. Where are the gloves?’_

_‘Behind you, by that princess cardboard cutout,’_ his youkai replied. _‘Are you sure they’ll fit?’_

_‘The smallest will,’_ he said as he pulled off four pairs of the gloves, checking the sizes and materials before carrying them to the front counter where he’d left the tag for the gloves he was wearing. _‘She’ll need the others as she grows.’_

He took out the small knitted pouch he carried with the money they’d earned from the things they made, checking the bills before laying five twenty-dollar notes on the counter. He didn’t know how much all of the items he took would come to, but a hundred dollars should be a good start.

_‘Except that you’re still in Canada and that’s American money. I think the conversion rate makes that a little less than what you intended,’_ his youkai pointed out.

_‘It’ll have to do. I can’t risk using the cards to pull any more money out of the ATM. What I did already was dangerous enough.The accounts are being watched,’_ he said as he took the gloves and knee socks from their boxes, shoving the bits of cloth into his coat pocket before slipping out of the store.

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

 

Satoshi issued a low terse warning growl as he narrowed his eyes and jerked his head in the direction of the hundred-year-old water oak. The tree stood a little more than twenty feet away, its branches stretching high and wide, the sparse amount of leaves enough to hide his mate and child. He met Amaya’s gaze, narrowing his eyes as he nodded to the small pouch in her hands, and nodded once before turning away.

He knew Vanessa hated wearing the gloves and knee socks he’d gotten for her—the satin blocking her from being able to feel the earth she touched—but he also knew it was the only way to keep her safe. She was too young, everything was too instinctual for her. Even if he commanded her not to grow the tree, she would do so without meaning to, her power that effortless. He heard her whine when Amaya helped her into the gloves and socks, and pressed his lips together in a thin line as he listened for the rustle of the leaves—announcing his mate and child’s ascent into the tree—before he moved forward.

Leaving the bit of land they’d found—the peaceful cabin hidden in the wilderness at the base of a mountain surrounded by evergreens—hadn’t been anything he’d wanted to do, but he hadn’t been given a choice in the matter, either. It had taken Vanessa a week to finish the garden, the wheat, fruits, vegetables, and herbs ready to harvest. The apple tree had taken her the longest to bring to blossom and bear fruit, and for as exhausted as she had been each day, he had never been more proud of her.

They had lived in peace there for almost two months, enough time that Vanessa had felt comfortable enough to experiment with her powers. He had watched her sit at the base of the apple tree she’d grown, the bear cub by her side, as she’d leaned back against the tree behind her, her fingertips buried deep in the soil. At first, the tree had grown wider, the branches and leaves filling out, thickening. Nearly half an hour later, he had smelled the difference before he had seen the flowers blossom and bear fruit—she had added plums to the apple tree. And in that moment, he had known that she knew by instinct what had taken him decades to discover on his own. But that very next day the hunters had appeared.

_The sound of the dogs was what woke him first, barks and howls, yips and snarls filling the air. His eyes snapped open as he sat up in the bed of vines and twisted branches, the flowers crushed beneath his hand as he met Amaya’s gaze before turning to look down at the ground below. There were a group of a men, a few women, but not very many, and several adolescent boys. Each person had a rifle, each one dressed in thick vests and coats, boots and rough pants._

_He shook his head as he looked at his mate, only to turn his head and watch in silence as Vanessa sat up in her nest, her arms wrapped around the bear cub in her arms. That cub was growing fast, it was almost as big as she was now, he thought with a shake of his head. His brow furrowed as he watched his daughter’s nest began to thicken, the roots and vines wrapping higher, curling tighter around her until it nearly hid them both from view._

_“Gather the bags,” he instructed Amaya quietly as he pressed his palms flat against the tree trunk behind him, watching as five thick branches stretched out, reaching for the tree closest to them as they braided together to create an elevated walkway. “Vanessa,” he called to his daughter as he stood from his crouch and moved to the place where she’d grown her nest. “It’s all right, get a good grip on Teddy,” he instructed, waiting for her to wrap her arms around her bear cub before he lifted her out of the nest. “Follow your mother, keep your youki wrapped tight.”_

_“I don’t like them, Papa,” she told him in a trembling whisper. “Why are they here? Why are they so loud?”_

_“They’re hunters,” he said quietly as he set her down on the braided walkway._

_“But we hunt and we’re not loud,” she denied as she let the cub down, patting her thigh for the animal to follow her as she walked._

_“They hunt for sport, this is a game to them.”_

Satoshi heaved an inward sigh as he blinked, forcefully pushing the memory back as he stared at the house in front of him. He didn’t want to be here, but he couldn’t risk traveling from forest to forest, either. Hunting season had started up again, small animals and deer, fishermen and trappers, coming out to find their prized catches, all the while their presence put his family in danger. The forest was _their_ home, damnit, but now even the trees weren’t safe.

“You alone?”

Satoshi looked up at the deep tone, meeting the dark gaze of the tuco-tuco youkai in front of him, and arched his brow. “I was told you would have options.”

“Depends on what you need,” the tuco-tuco youkai replied. “You looking for fast? Cargo? Dependable?”

“Invisible,” Satoshi replied.

“How many does it need to hold?”

“Four,” he replied, keeping his expression carefully blanked.

Satoshi never forgot the number one rule: if asked for a number of people, tell them more than there were, but never less and never the exact amount. Never offer specifics, either.

“Highway, back roads, or both?”

“Both,” Satoshi replied.

“Two thousand,” the tuco-tuco demanded.

“Fifteen-hundred,” he bartered.

“Eighteen-hundred, and I’ll throw in a revolver,” he offered.

Satoshi shook his head at once, the movement terse as he clenched his jaw. “No guns.”

The tuco-tuco youkai sighed. “Fifteen-hundred,” he said with a nod of agreement, and handed over a single key fob. “Blue-grey Toyota Camry corner of Third and Market. The model’s about fifteen years old, it has a remote start and a basic security system. On-board GPS has been disabled, so it can’t be tracked.”

“Do I have to worry about anyone looking for it?” Satoshi asked as he narrowed his eyes.

“It’s not stolen, if that’s what you’re asking,” the tuco-tuco replied. “You running from a hunter? I don’t want to have to worry about the Tai Youkai or his goon squad coming after me.”

“The sale is complete,” Satoshi said as his gaze hardened. “My business is my own.”

Satoshi stilled, his eyes narrowing when the man in front of him studied him, his brow furrowed in suspicion before his eyes widened in understanding. “You’re one of them. Haven’t met many of you.” The man held his gaze unblinking when Satoshi arched his brow. “You’re on the run from a collector. Don’t worry, I only sell what I know makes me money—and I _don’t_ deal in human or youkai trafficking.”

Satoshi nodded as he looked behind the man, debating on the best way to leave and get his mate and child without either of them being seen.

“Friendly piece of advice,” the youkai said, and Satoshi shifted his gaze to meet the man’s eyes. “Don’t go through Toronto, avoid it altogether.”

“Traffickers?” Satoshi asked with a frown.

“Hunters that work for the traffickers. From my experience in this business and the rumors I’ve heard, traffickers will send their hunters out into metropolitan areas, they’ll work as waiters and waitresses at dive joints—little hole in the wall places that cater to the misfits, or as gas station attendants on the edges of towns, and bartenders. They hide in plain sight, and work as teams. Don’t trust anyone, and as soon as you get to a stopping point, sell that car.” He pressed his lips into a thin line as he took in a deep breath. “If you’re heading to the states, sell the car at least fifteen miles before you get to the border. Of the three points you could cross—Michigan, Illinois, or New York—New York holds the most potential for danger _during_ the crossing, but also holds the greatest potential for turning into a ghost once you do cross. Stay as close to human-only towns as you can.”

“Why give me that kind of information?” Satoshi asked before he could stop himself.

The man sighed, the muscle in jaw ticking. “Because what they’re doing pisses me the hell off. Didn’t know how deep it all went until a friend of mine called me one night. She was kitsune, the hunters and traffickers go after them to, but for different reasons.”

Satoshi frowned. “ _Was_?”

“They’ve got a serum that forces kitsune to take their youkai form and stay that way. I’d seen her in her youkai form before—she was white gold with hints of dark cherry. Beautiful.” The anger in the man’s expression was tangible, as was his grief. “I found her corpse—youkai form—skinned. So, why am I telling you this? Because I’ll tell whoever I can. The fuck I want anyone else ending up like she did—or worse.”

Satoshi held the man’s gaze for a moment longer before the tuco-tuco youkai turned away, blending in easily with the shadows as he disappeared into the night. He turned his head as he looked to the water oak, nodding once, and watched as his family descended to the ground. It was safe here, better than anywhere else, he thought as he looked at the bear cub that was always at his daughter’s side. There were no hunters here and, being a bear, that cub would grow up to be the apex predator of this forest. The only problem? Convincing Vanessa to leave Teddy behind. They couldn’t take the bear with them, not in a car, and not across the highway. It was too dangerous for them all and would be far too stressful for the animal.

“Teddy has to stay here,” he said as he met his daughter’s gaze.

Vanessa nodded silently, her gaze falling to the ground. “I know. Mama explained it to me. Will Teddy be all right?”

Satoshi offered her a single slow nod, his gaze drifting to meet Amaya’s and sighed softly as he nodded to her. “We have what we need and it will wait for us. We can take Teddy back to the tree by the pond, she’ll find her own way from there, and grow up as she was meant to.”

“Vanessa,” Amaya said as she knelt down in front of her. “When we take her back, we can’t go slow and we can’t stop. Your papa and I will take turns carrying the both of you, but we have to move very quickly.”

Vanessa pouted as she looked up, her brow furrowed as she stared into the tree above them. “But our bags. . . “

“They’re well hidden, and high enough up,” Amaya assured her. “They’ll be safe until we return, but we must go now.”

“Are you ready to take your energy form?” he asked Amaya quietly, pleased when she nodded. “You learned this skill easily. You’ll learn everything else in time,” he praised her.

“It still exhausts me,” she told him softly. “Vanessa,” she turned to the girl. “You understand why we have to leave her behind, don’t you?”

Vanessa nodded quietly, her lips turned down and pushed out in a sad pout. “I don’t want Teddy to be lonely, or to forget me.”

“Teddy knows you love her,” Satoshi promised as he stepped forward, lifted Vanessa into his arms as Amaya cradled the bear cub in hers. “They say a bear is like an elephant—they never forget those who were kind to them, or those who were cruel. Teddy will always remember you because you took care of her. Maybe you’ll see her again someday,” he said.

“Are you ready?” Amaya asked, and Satoshi glanced at her only to realize that she was asking Vanessa and not him.

Vanessa nodded silently, reaching out to touch Teddy’s muzzle before curling against her father, tucking her head beneath his chin. He knew she didn’t like traveling in this energy form, and, in some manner, was even frightened of it, but they didn’t have the luxury of time. Satoshi watched as the bear followed Vanessa’s example, curling close to Amaya and issuing a little groaning growl to say that she, too, was ready.

“Do you remember what I taught you?” he asked Amaya quietly, referring to the ability to carry another living being in her energy form, and waited for her nod before he turned his attention on Vanessa. “Close your eyes, Vanessa,” he bid of her. “Don’t open them until I tell you to.”

“Yes, Papa,” she said softly.

Satoshi closed his eyes as he concentrated, feeling Amaya’s youki shift in the same manner that his did and in moments, they were nothing more than small orbs of light, moving through the air fast enough to be unseen.

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

  


Satoshi frowned as he looked at the child sleeping in the backseat, her head pillowed on the bag containing he and his mate’s clothing. Vanessa was lying on her side, her arms wrapped around her own small bag in the same manner that she used to hold the bear cub. His gaze fell to the side as a pang of regret shot through him. He knew Vanessa loved that little bear cub with everything she had, and that bear cub had felt the same—always walking beside her, climbing the trees alongside Vanessa, protecting her by warning her away when humans wandered too close to their own private sanctuary.

In some manner, that little cub had given Vanessa the confidence she lacked by providing her with a life that relied on her, sought comfort and protection from her, and in turn that made Vanessa stronger. When they were settled, when they had a permanent home once more, he would get her another animal. Perhaps not a bear, he thought with an amused twitch of his lips, but maybe something that she could care for that would also—in its own way—provide for their family. A lamb, or perhaps a goat, maybe. . . maybe an alpaca.

He glanced up at his mate when he heard her soft chuckle, watched as she took her eyes off the road long enough to meet his gaze before turning her attention back to the empty highway. “A lamb would be good,” she agreed with a nod.

“How. . . ?”

She chuckled softly, her lips bent in the barest hint of a smile. “When you’re thinking about something strongly, I can see flashes of images—I never hear the thought itself, and it’s nothing like the true telepathy I shared with my pod in the ocean, but it’s enough.” She was quiet for a moment, a smile twitching her lips. “It’s like when Vanessa wraps her vines around me. I can hear her thoughts, not everything, but whatever is the strongest in her mind comes to me through the vines—through the earth.”

Satoshi nodded quietly as he considered her words. She’d never told him that before, but maybe the answer to that question was simple—he’d never asked. In some manner, Amaya was a greater influence on Vanessa than he was. It had taken Amaya so long to learn to speak out loud—it wasn’t that she couldn’t speak, but she had never needed to before. There were times even now that she would go for days without talking, not because she was upset in any manner, but simply that she didn’t feel the need to.

Vanessa was the same. There were days—weeks, even—that his daughter would go without speaking aloud, simply content to communicate with he and her mother through their joined youki. If she was hungry, they could feel it through her youki. If she was scared or uncertain, she would tug at them. Happy or lonely, sad or angry, excited or curious—all of it was felt through the way she tugged or prodded or pulled on their youki with hers.

Satoshi closed his eyes as a slow smile bent the corners of his lips up in a ghost of a smile as he realized what he’d taken for granted for so long—just as it was for his mate, his daughter didn’t need to speak out loud, everything she wanted to say could be communicated through her youki. It would make it difficult when she was finally able to make friends, wouldn’t it? She would want to connect with their youki the same as she did with them, but other youkai would reject it, push her away.

_‘Tosh,’_ his youkai called to him quietly. _‘It’s the natural hope of a father to see their child happy, surrounded by friends, but Ness. . . She can’t really have that. Every youkai you’ve been near—that_ she’s _been near—it’s always the same. They either reject her, or attack her—same thing happens to Amaya. I would give anything for both of them, so would you, but . . .’_

_‘But we can’t make the world see them differently. The only way to keep her safe. . . ‘_

_‘Is to keep her hidden,’_ his youkai completed the thought with a slow internal nod.

_‘Were we selfish?’_ Satoshi asked his youkai quietly, hesitantly, feeling the guilt for a choice he’d made so long ago.

_‘Selfish?’_ his youkai repeated with confusion.

_‘Taking Amaya away from her family in the ocean—taking her away from everything she’s ever known. Making her remain like this? There are times that I swear it hurts her—actually physically_ hurts _her—to be in this humanoid form,’_ Satoshi said, his lips pursing in a frown as his brow furrowed, and he turned to look out the passenger window next to him, watching the landscape, the shadows dancing in the night. _‘The one thing she loves the most—being in the water, swimming—and I’ve taken that from her.’_

_‘She gave it up willingly to be with you—with us,’_ his youkai countered pensively. _‘She’d do it again, I know she would. And it’s not as though you could have joined her in the ocean. Even if there was a way that you could have, from what things she’s said, her family would have killed you both. But that’s not all of it, is it? There’s something else that’s been bothering you. . . for a while now . . .about Ness.’_

Satoshi sighed. Turning away from the window, he glanced at Amaya, watching as she pulled the car over, slowing to a stop on the shoulder without having to be asked. She nodded once as she put the car into park, turning off the engine before glancing into the back seat at their daughter.

“She’ll sleep for a while, and I could use the rest,” she told him softly. “Go on,” she said, nodding to the open field beside the car. “Whenever you’re having a debate with your youkai, or really need to focus on whatever it is you’re thinking about, I always see a tree in my mind. Like a vision, I guess.”

Satoshi nodded, a pained crooked grin twisting his mouth up to one side. “I can pour all of my power into the ground and make a tree, I guess . . . it gives me focus,” he said before unlocking his seatbelt and stepping from the car. “When I come back, I’ll drive so you can sleep a while.”

She nodded as he closed the door. He looked at her through the tempered glass for a moment longer before turning away, and stepping through the shin-high grass further out into the field. He came to a spot almost a hundred feet away from the car, something in the ground calling to him, and sat down, crossing his legs together as he closed his eyes and thrust his fingers into the ground on either side of him up to the third knuckle.

A water oak, he decided as he released the hold he kept on his own power, letting it flow through him and into the ground as he turned his thoughts inward, returning his attention to the conversation he’d begun with his youkai in the car.

_‘So, you’re ready to really get into this?’_ his youkai asked. Satoshi offered a mental nod, his fingers sinking deeper into the earth around him as he felt the ground vibrate, roots breaking through the grass around him as the tree grew behind him. _‘Let’s start with Ness—the things you want for her that you also know she really can’t have—why do you hide from it? Why do you get so angry with me?’_

Satoshi released a slow deep breath as he pressed his lips together into a thin line. _‘I’m not really angry at you.’_

_‘But you are,’_ his youkai debated. _‘You’ll ignore me when I talk to you, or get angry and direct all of it at me. Tosh, you know, don’t you? Amaya’s our mate, the only one we could ever have—the only one_ I _could ever have, but it was never a choice that was in our control. If you had tried to ignore that feeling, tried to give her up, both of you would have died.’_

_‘She gave me the strength I needed to run away from my father, to fight against him but. . . ‘_

_‘But what?’_ his youkai asked. _‘Bend the branches, force them out and down. It’s already taller than most of its kind. At least make it look as ancient as its size would account for. That’s it, like a canopy. Good, good. Now, strengthen it. Widen it.’_

Satoshi took in a deep breath, frowning as he felt a root push up underneath him, rippling in a wave before rising out of the ground to bend over him. He could feel it arcing over him, but didn’t open his eyes to look. _‘I. . . It’s my fault she’s in danger all the time. If I had been stronger, if I had. . .’_

_‘If you had what, Tosh? If you had killed your father? Are we really back to that? How would that make things any different? I read through those papers same as you—the things that were delivered, the things he left behind. It wasn’t—it_ isn’t _—just your father you’ve been running from. He was never working alone. That journal that was included in the packet you were given. . . Your father talked about being. . ._ commissioned _. . . to create you. But after all the attempts, all the . . . he chose to keep you for himself.’_

_‘The Benefactor. That was the name my father wrote in that journal,’_ Satoshi said with a slow exhalation.

_‘Tosh,’_ his youkai called to him with a sigh. _‘You’re evading.’_

Satoshi released a heavy sigh, the sound rolling in the back of his throat. _‘I. . . As much as I wanted Vanessa—wanted a child of my own to hold—I. . . ‘_

_‘You wished Amaya would miscarry,’_ his youkai finished his thought. _‘I know. What I don’t know, is why. Why would you wish for that?’_

Satoshi opened his eyes, tipping his head up to look at the giant water oak above him. He could feel the girth of the trunk behind him, see it out of his peripheral vision. It stretched up above him nearly a hundred feet, the largest of the branches stretching out in gentle waves until the tips of them touched the earth. Leaves swayed and trembled in the breeze, the branches wider around than he was—sturdy enough to hold someone—strong enough to withstand a storm. But would it withstand a human? He wondered, knowing that it was likely a human would try to cut it down.

_‘Because I was afraid,’_ he answered slowly. _‘I still am. Vanessa can’t separate her powers, and maybe that will change as she grows older, but what happens if she never can?’_

His youkai sighed regretfully. _‘You mean because she wouldn’t be able to pass for a normal earth youkai like you can when you need to, and she wouldn’t be able to pass for a water youkai, either. She’s kujira youkai and earth—Amaya carries the power of the ocean—it’s stronger, deeper,_ older _than water. The ocean is life itself. You want Ness to have a normal life, to make friends, to share herself with someone else. . . But she can’t.’_ His youkai paused for a moment, as though gathering its thoughts. _‘You’ve made it all an adventure for her, a story of excitement, but someday she will understand that she—that_ all _of you—are being hunted. I want that freedom for her to, the freedom to have and make friends, to share who and what she is with someone else, but that kind of freedom—temporary or otherwise—comes at a very steep cost.’_

_‘The gloves, the socks, the store-bought clothes and shoes made from materials that have been processed so much that anything natural is no longer there at all. . .It hides her power, but it hurts her—weakens her.’_ Satoshi shook his head as his eyes stung. He blinked the tears away as he clenched his jaw. _‘She can be near humans, if she wears all of that—hides her power, denies what she is. But youkai? Power hidden or not, they’d know what she was in an instant. Maybe not what she is exactly,’_ he allowed as he thumped the back of his head against the tree behind him. _‘But they’d know that she was different—wrong—at least in their eyes.’_

_‘And that’s why you’ve been so angry?’_ his youkai asked quietly. _‘Because you finally realized the truth? That no matter how much you want the same existence for her that any father would want for their child, it’s just not possible. She could be near humans, but only by pretending to be one.’_

_‘I can build a home for us as far out in the wilds as possible, wherever we settle in, but . . . What happens when she wants to go to school?’_ he asked, shaking his head as he slipped out from under the giant root that hooked over his lap, and leapt into the branches above. _‘What happens when she wants to make friends with someone her own age?’_

_‘I don’t know,’_ his youkai replied. _‘But I do know that as much as you want to keep her from that, protect her from whatever pain may come, that may be a lesson she has to learn for herself.’_

_‘And if she meets another youkai her age? If they frighten or threaten her?’_

He could feel the reluctance in his youkai, the regret and sorrow. _‘When you settle, when you get to where you’re going, make a place where she will be safe, no matter who comes looking.’_

_‘How would you suggest I do that?’_ he asked, scoffing as he frowned.

_‘I don’t know,’_ his youkai replied. _‘Build a tree you can all live inside,’_ the voice offered in an off-handed comment.

_‘A tree,’_ Satoshi repeated, blinking as the furrow between his brows smoothed out.

A tree. That just might work. Dropping to the ground below, he cast his eyes to the side of the road, his lips curling up in a half-smile, the expression genuine and relaxed, when he caught sight of Amaya standing with her back against the side of the car, her gaze locked on him. He nodded as he stepped toward her, watching as she offered him an amused grin before nodding at the tree behind him. His brows quirked in a curious expression before he turned, his eyes widening as he took in the tree he’d created.

Apparently, he’d had quite a lot to work out, he thought as he shook his head slowly in wonder. The water oak was huge, easily sixty feet across at its widest point, the branches arching out toward the ground, creating sloping arcs that would allow someone to sit comfortably in the boughs. If anyone were to guess its age just from its appearance alone, they would assume the tree to be well over three hundred years old, when the truth was, it had only emerged an hour ago.

“You should add moss,” Amaya suggested. “It’ll make it look older, like it’s been here the whole time and no one simply took the time to notice it.”

He nodded to her as he toed his right foot out its shoe, planting his barefoot in the grass, and focused on the tree. His connection to the tree was instant, a line of energy and power between himself and his creation that allowed him to create hanging curtains of Spanish moss from the outermost branches. He slipped his foot back into his shoe before turning around, grateful that the lonely stretch of highway they were on was surrounded by nothing but open fields, and the few barns and homesteads they had seen had long since been abandoned. A scenic route, nothing more, and now with a tree.

_‘The good thing is,’_ his youkai said with a touch amusement. _‘If someone does decide to report the tree or make a big deal out of it, you and Amaya will be long gone. But I doubt anyone will think youkai—not even another youkai. What you and Ness can do, no other youkai can.’_

_‘Small favors, right?’_ Satoshi replied.

_‘You should go back there and carve an image a hooded woman and infant in the trunk.’_

Satoshi blinked, frowned in confusion. _‘What? Why?’_

_‘Baka! The last thirty miles or so before you all got out this far was nothing but churches. Someone does say anything then that carving would be a religious symbol, yeah? And if the humans claim it as a religious relic. . . ‘_

_‘I don’t know where you get your ideas sometimes,’_ Satoshi replied, shaking his head slowly as he stepped back toward the car, catching the keys Amaya tossed to him in one hand.

“East,” she said with a grin. “Toward the ocean, in a place where the forests still exist in abundance.”

“East. Forests,” he agreed as they each slipped into the car, the engine rumbling seconds later when he turned the key in the ignition. “Maine,” he said with a smile, meeting her gaze before pulling back onto the open road.

 

**~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~**

  


**Bangor, Maine**

**Local Emergency Search and Rescue office**

 

Pressing his lips into a thin line, Corey released a heavy exhalation through his nose and shook his head. He didn’t speak as he crossed the floor of workout mats, bypassing the weight lifting benches and two treadmills as he came to stand in front of the young girl sitting on the floor with her back to the wall, her knees pulled up to her chest and arms wrapped around her legs. She didn’t look up when his shadow fell over her, didn’t seem to notice his presence at all as he moved to sit down on the floor beside her.

“These past few weeks, I’ve watched you come in here and beat the living hell out of that bag,” he said, nodding to the heavyweight boxing bag hanging from the metal supports near the boxing ring. “Half the time, you didn’t even have anything to protect your hands when you started.” He paused, waiting for her to look up, or to respond. She did neither. “Now, you just look defeated. What happened?”

The breath she took in was harsh, her lips trembling as she shook her head without looking up at him, her arms tightening around her legs as she folded herself smaller. “I hate her _so much_ , Corey,” she admitted, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close when the scent of salt stung his nose.

“Your mom?” he asked, staring out at the open workout area in front of them as he held her. He lifted his chin when J.J. stepped into his line of sight across the room. “J.J. told me things aren’t good between you two.”

_“Gwen,” Corey said as he glanced at J.J., his arms crossed over his chest as he looked at the girl sitting against the concrete wall. “She’s not okay, is she?”_

_“No,” J.J. replied quietly, his tone hard. “She’s not. Amme and I have tried, but she won’t talk to us. Maybe she’ll talk to you.” He took in a deep breath as he turned to meet Corey’s gaze. “You’re not inside all of this, you don’t know just how manipulative her mother is. That woman will destroy whatever she cannot control by any means necessary. And I do mean_ any _means.”_

Gwen sniffled as she unfolded herself, curling closer to him as she rested her head against his chest. She lifted one hand to wipe her eyes, curling her hand beneath her chin as she sighed. “That’s putting it mildly,” she said after a few moments. “I had an opportunity to jump a few grades in school, but she . . . I wasn’t willing to do what she asked.”

Corey released a heavy sigh, his breath stirring her hair. “Dare I ask?”

“She wanted me to take Dobby and move out of J.J. and Amme’s place,” Gwen told him quietly. Corey growled before he could stop himself, only to blink as he looked down at the sound of the girl’s soggy laugh. “Yeah,” she said in response to his growl.

“Wait, you’re living there?” he asked, brows furrowed in confusion. “I thought it was just for a few days.” Gwen didn’t lift her head from where it rested as she offered him a hum of denial. “So, where’s your mom in all of this?”

“New York, I think,” Gwen mumbled, and heaved a sigh. “She went right back to work modeling in New York or Chicago or wherever like nothing ever happened. She tells everyone that Daddy left her for his secretary.” She whimpered, taking in a shuddering gasp. “I hate her so much sometimes that it actually _hurts_ to breathe.”

Corey rubbed her arm as he leaned his head back against the cinderblock wall behind him. “J.J. and Amme have probably explored everything they can do, huh?” he asked, and felt her nod. “You fallin’ asleep on me, kitten?” he asked, and grunted when she shrugged.

“It doesn’t even matter anymore,” Gwen said after a moment, her voice empty as though any hope she may have been holding onto was gone.

“What doesn’t?” he asked her, frowning as he looked up, catching J.J.’s gaze and jerking his head to indicate he should come closer.

“Any of it,” Gwen said quietly. “I went to start classes today. Mom called the school at some point before school started up again. I could’ve jumped at least two grades without needing her signature.” She fell quiet, her muscles tense, and Corey wondered if she wasn’t trying not to cry. He looked up to meet J.J.’s gaze, watching the bear’s eyes darken as he crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t know what she had to do to get it done,” Gwen said, the scent of salt once more in the air. “Ms. Thames pulled me out of class, called me into her office this morning . . . I’m repeating fourth grade. I tested out and could have gone all the way to ninth with her signature, but I wasn’t willing to pay her price and now she’s showing me how much control she really has,” she said, thumping her fist against his chest. “What I want, what Dobby needs. . . none of it matters. She’s proving that.”

“This. . . Ms. Thames,” Corey said, arching a brow and meeting J.J.’s gaze when he heard the man’s deep growl. “She can see that you don’t need to be held back—from your marks last year—can’t she?”

Gwen released a hard exhalation—something between a laugh and cough. “She said that any changes to my academic standing would have to be approved of by my mother—I would need her signature . . .I wanted to yell at Mr. Thames, tell her that it wasn’t right, and then I saw it.”

“Saw what?” Corey asked with a frown.

Gwen gave him a short rueful laugh. “There are perks to being a model. Designers and people will give you their bags or shoes or clothes or whatever—free advertising, I guess.” She sighed heavily. “Ms. Thames had a new Marc Jacobs bag on her desk, and a new pair of heels—way more expensive than she could ever afford—on her feet.” Gwen was silent for a moment. “She’s been threatening for weeks that I’ll regret my decision to say no to her—that saying no came with a price, too. . . I thought it was just smoke—intimidation tactics, but it wasn’t. She knows how to buy off everyone she needs to. It is her favorite saying after all—everyone has a price. God, how stupid can I be?”

Corey grunted as he tightened his arm around her. “You’re not stupid, don’t ever say that. You were protecting your brother, and yourself. And if I know J.J.,” he said, looking up to meet the man’s gaze. “He’s gonna fight like hell for you. You’re not in this alone.”

Gwen sighed. “Every decision I make hurts someone. It feels like I can’t do anything right. I hurt Dobby, or Amme and J.J., or . . . “

“Or yourself,” Corey finished her thought and felt her nod against his chest. “That’s what you’ve been trying to do, isn’t it? Choose only the options that hurt you and no one else. But don’t you see?” he asked when she shrugged. “If it hurts you, it _does_ hurt them—all of them. When you hurt, they hurt. That’s what family is.”

“It’s not fair,” she said, her anger rising as she thumped her fist against his chest.

Corey’s lips pulled up to one side in a bittersweet grin. “Of course, it’s not. What she’s doing has nothing to do with supporting you, or looking after you, or being fair. She’s trying to make you submit, in any way she can.”

“So, what do I do?” she asked him, and he turned his head down when he felt her look up at him.

“That’s up to you,” he said, and nodded over her head, watching as she turned to look at J.J. with a gasp. “You can bend to her will, or fight for what you believe in—for what you want.”

“Whatever you decide,” J.J. said as he held Gwen’s gaze, “we’ve got your back.”

Gwen nodded silently, her gaze falling to the side as she shook her head. “She said she would compromise,” she said slowly.

Corey met J.J.’s gaze over Gwen’s bowed head with a frown. “What kind of. . . compromise?” the cat youkai asked her.

Gwen sighed as she looked up, meeting his gaze before turning to look at J.J. “I can jump ahead—not all the way to ninth—just two grades.”

“And her price?” J.J. asked, his expression carefully blanked even as his voice remained tense.

“I can leave Dobby with you and Amme, but I would have to move back to the house,” she said slowly. “It’s not home anymore. Daddy made it home, but her? She makes it a prison.”

He wanted to tell her no, Corey thought as he studied J.J. That polar bear wanted to demand that Gwen say no and not even consider the offer her mother had made, but he couldn’t, could he? He’d already promised her that any such decision was hers to make and that they would all stand behind her. That may be the only reason she’d mentioned her mother’s offer, and if she was mentioning it now, then she’d already weighed her choices against the possible outcomes.

“You’ve already made your decision, haven’t you?” Corey asked when J.J. remained silent. He closed his eyes, clenched his jaw when Gwen nodded. “You accepted her offer,” he said a moment later.

“I want my brother to be safe,” Gwen said quietly. “But I don’t want to grow up resenting him. I’ll be over every day after school, I’ll take care of him after school and on the weekends, and I’ll see him as much as I can, but I. . .”

“He’s your brother, not your cub,” J.J. argued, only to close his eyes as he clenched his jaw. “Have you given her your answer yet?” he asked.

Corey could see that J.J. was fighting to remain calm, could feel the man’s temper flaring in the surge of his youki.

Gwen shook her head. “I don’t want to say yes,” she blurted out, her voice choked. “But I don’t want to be held back, either. If I say yes, then I—” she cut herself off with a shake of her head. “But if I say no . . .”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” J.J. demanded, closing his eyes as he took in a deep breath. “I’m mad at her, cub,” he told Gwen. “Not you.”

Gwen shrugged. “What was I supposed to say? That she was using my brother against me again? That she was spewing all that _crap_ again?”

“What crap?” Corey asked before J.J. could.

“She did an interview with some magazine,” she told them. “Four-one-five Catwalk, or something like that. I didn’t know about it until one of the other girls in my class showed it to me. She said that Dobby and I weren’t her kids, that we were Daddy’s from another marriage and he took us with him when he left her.”

The growl that erupted from J.J. was dark and dangerous. “Corey, take Gwen and pick up Dobby. She’ll show you where he’s at.” He turned his attention to Gwen. “I’m mad at her, and there is no way for me to be calm right now. You don’t deserve my anger, either of you cubs do.”

“Want me to keep them for a few days?” he asked, his voice too low for Gwen to hear, and watched J.J. nod.

“Take care of my cubs,” J.J. said, waiting for Corey’s nod before he stood and walked away.

“I’m as mad as he is,” Gwen said quietly, sitting back with a heavy sigh. “But there’s nothing he can do. Mom made sure of that.”

Corey released an amused breath, meeting Gwen’s gaze when she looked up at him. “One thing I’ve learned over the years,” he told her as he stood from the floor and helped her up. “Never get between a bear and his cubs.” He tipped his head to one side as he offered her a crooked grin. “Or a bitch and her pups.”

“Corey!” Gwen reprimanded.

“What?” he said innocently. “Technically, she is one.”

Gwen shook her head as she reached for her back pack. “Come on, Catman,” she said as she walked away.

Corey shook his head as he stared after her. “I am never going to live that down.”

 

 


End file.
